Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Preparations for a rainy day.

Some websites I'm completely inspired by are Chasing Cheerios and Confessions of a Homeschooler, just to name a few of the wonderful blogs out there by amazing women....I'm in complete awe of these women and the activities they do with their children. I always get this thought that I wish I could homeschool my kids...but know I could never really do it. I'm scared of the public school system, but the only contact I've had with it was my experience and now taking Bella to speech therapy there....I'm just afraid she is going to get swallowed up by the system with her quiet ways and sensitive spirit. But we'll give it a chance...and I know it will totally be fine...I just worry, who doesn't when they send their first off to kindergarten!?

I digress....one of the projects I had on my list was to make a sensory bin...and the one I wanted to make was a rice bin. The idea stemmed from Chasing Cheerios' Valentines day sensory box....I did some more research and saw how someone made Rainbow Rice for their box and knew Bella would love putting something like this together!

So...to start, I went and bought like 10 bags of  the cheap rice....they were $1 a bag at Albertsons. I ended up only using 6 or 7 of them. I split the bags in half and put the rice into baggies....Bella added the food coloring. It was surprising that it uses a good amount of coloring, we weren't stingy with it!
Then you close up the top (VERY important...we learned the hard way to double check!)...and then shake shake shake your heart out!
And shake shake shake....
Then you have pretty colored rice!!! The directions I found said to add a tsp of rubbing alcohol to help the rice dry faster. But rubbing alcohol STINKS....so I used hand sanitizer instead.
Then we laid it all out on cookie sheets to dry...only takes about an hour or two.
Then you add it to a bin! And it looks so nice and pretty...the ONLY time it will look like this (before it ends up all over the floor, lol). James saw this on the table and asked me "What do they do with it now?" Good question!
They PLAY with it!! For over 2 hours!!! Bliss. Especially on a day like today when it rained all morning.
And yes...it makes a mess...a BIG ONE. But...it just gives Bella the opportunity to practice her vacuuming skills ;). I have a little dust buster and she just went to town, trying to get all the little pieces up!|

My next project: A Simple Storytelling game. Well...not next...but it's on THE LIST....the ever growing list.
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7 comments:

~jAnA~ said...

What a cool mom you are!!! I never thought to do cool things like that. Now my kiddos are too old and think I'm so UN-cool! miss ya

Jennifer said...

WOw that is so awesome! I might have to try it.. I'm trying to find new things to do with Cayden besides his toys and cars all day long.. :) And movies.. ;) What great websites though! I'm glad you've found them so I can use them too :) Love ya!

craftyashley said...

We are SO doing that at our house! Thanks for the great ideas! We don't do anything creative or fun around here. :( The girls watch me feed baby and play Wii. Boredom!

Jenni said...

Ash is too old but I bet she would play with it anyway.

Colton Anne said...

Looks like fun! I think we may have to try this out...yes it may be messy, but Kayley has a thing with finger paint type stuff that she won't touch it to safe her life...I think this would be right down her ally! Thanks for the tips!!

Ashley said...

ok, that looks fun! When can I move in?

Julie{isCocoandCocoa} said...

That looks like so much fun!