We’ve tried to play with rice time and time again. And y’all. I think we’ve finally found the winning recipe for success.
Here are our top 5 rice play tips:
1. Food Coloring. Gotta go conventional on this one. Natural food dyes just aren't going to have the same vibrancy. Save those for something your kids will actually digest and use the cheap, powerful stuff for sensory bins. Something about cleaning up bright rice also puts me in a less bitter mood than when cleaning pale, muted rice. 🤷🏼♀️ We've gone the—rice in a ziplock baggie and add drops off food coloring and 1 tsp vinegar route—and are usually happier when we add extra vinegar and use big ziploc bags.
2. Limit scooping utensils. If you’re trying to avoid mess, especially when just starting out with rice play, having a single scooping utensil in the bin/tray available for your kiddo limits the potential craze if they really get going. The beauty of a minimal approach is they don’t know the difference, and are likely more able to focus with fewer, intentional options.
3. Time it to your advantage. We set this invitation up the evening before I knew the floors are getting a good mopping. And y'all. This week, for the first time ever, I paid someone to mop. Our sweet summer nanny put the kids down for nap and then cleaned.my.house. 👏🏻👏🏻 I did not care if the rice went everywhere that morning, cause I knew it would be bagged up and swept up that afternoon. It did wonders for the part of me that cringes when a scoop gets extra follow through.
4. Clean up together. No lie, I don’t always have the patience to do this, but the times when we play the clean up song laughing about spotting another grain after grain of rice are formative. They have practice cleaning up after themselves and are reminded (without you reminding them) that rice outside of the bin gets cleaned up.
5. Practice. I know, it's annoying. It'd be nice for the kids to be little clean freaks from the get go and be content pouring and scooping within the appropriated space. But unfortunately, that’s more than likely not the case. But take heart, it will get less and less messy. Just prepare for the occasional rice firework.
As I’ve worked to follow my own tips for rice play, the day we set out this flower invitation was the best yet.
Not sure if the kids caught on to the attempt of day and night with the "antiqued" moon, but I'm pretty sure they caught the flower. Which of course, only lasted until a toilet paper roll ring was ever so gently repositioned.
I had thought about putting a bowl of bright colored rice and seeing if they would've filled the petals, but Gal opened the sensory table (the legendary Ikea flisat table) before breakfast exposing the invitation waaaaay before I was geared up for the endeavor. We went for it nonetheless. Full steam ahead.
That's a small parenting lesson I think I've gleaned since entering toddler life. Go with the flow. Pivot. Adapt. Embrace the present Whatever you want to call it.
My plans, or the way I picture something going, aren't worth the emotional rollercoaster I put my kid on if it means switching tracks when they're not expecting it or even old enough for the ride.⠀
Putting the lid back on the table after she's seen something that sparked her curiosity, would have derailed her. It was far easier (for all three of us) to adjust my expectation for the activity, rather than try to divert Gal's excitement away from the rice flower she discovered and rekindle it at a later hour.
Sure, it's a bit of a blow to my heart propped up by high expectations, especially when I've spent precious evening or naptime minutes creating and dreaming of how the kids will receive an activity, but we've learned it's better.
For all of us. 💞