It’s been all things rainbow in our house this week as we get closer to St. Patrick’s Day. Here was a new spin on an old idea, since we’ve made rainbow rice before, but with some learning thrown in. Today, there were letters hidden in all that rice!

As a reminder, you can make rainbow rice by combining 1 cup white rice, 1 tablespoon white vinegar, and a few drops of food coloring in a zip-top bag, using 1 bag for each color desired. Seal and shake to coat, then pour onto paper plates and let dry overnight.

In the morning, I arranged the colors in rainbow order for Veronika. I then set out two sets of letters. The first was smooth rocks, which I had labeled A through Z with a sharpie.

The second were the pieces of a letter puzzle. I recommend working with only a few letters at a time for a toddler, or you risk wearing out your child’s concentration! As always, a great place to start is the letters of your child’s name, so today I placed the puzzle letters V-I-K-A (Veronika’s nickname) in the rice.

I pulled our each correspondingly lettered rock, and we went hunting for them! “Hmm, where’s k?” Veronika said so seriously, sifting through the rice with a spoon. “Here it is!”

After we had matched these letters, it became more of a free-for-all. She loved putting the rocks in the rice and burying them with the spoon.

Then, as she uncovered each one, we would look over at the puzzle to find the one it matched.

Finally, things turned into regular sensory play, which was just fine. She loved the sound the rice made as we sprinkled it down!

The pastel colors of the rice helped us channel spring, which is less than a week away, a very welcome thought as winter weather continues outside.