This St. Patrick's Day themed kids activity was a BIG hit! My 6 year old (I nanny, remember?) said "Anna, how do you always come up with so many fun things to do?" Which was the most awesome compliment ever, and makes all the time I spend on Pinterest seem more worthwhile! The idea for this activity was inspired by a shaving cream leprechaun gold dig using rainbow tinted shaving cream and plastic gold coins. When I went to the store I found chocolate gold coins instead. I thought, what could I put these in instead of shaving cream. Something food-safe, but still fun to dig through. I immediately thought back to some rainbow-colored rice I made last year that is always such fun to play with. I decided to make some green play rice for this activity, and it was a hit with both the kids (6 and 2 years old). For the 6 year old, we made it a time challenge-how many coins can you find in 30 seconds? In 1 minute? With your eyes shut? The 2 year old was just content to dig through the rice (and occasionally fling it everywhere.) It was a great afternoon!
(Sorry, phone camera again. I never remember to bring my nikon to work.)
The rice is SUPER simple! All you need is a bag of rice, hand sanitizer, and food dye.
I used the instant rice because it was what I had, and I used a 14oz box of it. I used 4 pumps of hand sanitizer (i don't think the amount is super crucial, just a blob of hand sanitizer to help distribute the foos coloring.). I used 20 drops of green food coloring, it could've used more if we wanted it to be really bold green. I put everything in a big zipper top plastic bag and shook it like crazy (the 6 year old loved to help shake it!)
Then I poured it into a big bowl (I did one bowl for each kid, but if you have a really giant bin, that could be fun too) with the gold chocolate coins! They liked to dig through with spoons AND with their hands! So much fun, pretty easy clean up too (just sweep up the rice!).
Happy St Patty's Day!!!
-Anna
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