Autumn rice sensory tub and craft

It has been a while since we made our first rice based sensory tub and so I decided to make another. This time I chose an autumn theme as the leaves are just starting to change colour.

When I first saw dyed rice activities I thought "what a total pain" but I love dying rice – it is easy and fun.

I dyed the rice with food colouring in two separate batches – one pink/orange and the other yellow/lime green. I left the rice out to dry thoroughly before I gave it to the kids. I also added feathers, small pieces of yellow and orange paper, googly eyes, orange straw, fake red rose petals and lime green maple leaves.

I gave Boo the chance to play with the sensory tub on her own while Cakey was out. She enjoyed pouring the rice from container to container but was not particularly interested in the other bits and pieces.

The following day I set up some paper and glue as I thought Cakey may like to create something with the materials from the sensory tub while Boo played with it. This didn't go to plan of course... Cakey wanted to play in the tub and Boo wanted to glue. In the end play went from tub to gluing to tub to gluing back to tub.

1. Cakey's bird  2. Cakey's rice worm  3. Boo's experimentation

I made a real effort not to lead or prompt during the craft/gluing activity. I recently read an ebook from the Artful Genius (download it here, it is free) about creative thinking and imagination... and I really wanted to see where the activity would go (or not go) if I kept my mouth shut. Interestingly, Cakey chose to keep the materials separate – making rice only pictures and then making bird pictures with the feathers and eyes.

In the end the kids tipped the tub over and scattered the rice for miles... and then we spent the next half hour cleaning it up.

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