How to make some vibrant and colourful neon rainbow rice for sensory play, using just two simple ingredients and a VERY easy method! No vinegar, no smell, no fuss. It takes moments to make and lasts years, and is a brilliant sensory bin filler as well as a great art material for collage too.
Now that we’ve perfected this much, much simpler method for dyeing rice we have been making it all of the time! We made some batches to donate to school for their sensory play and have experimented with vivid rainbow colours, shimmering metallics and now fluorescent neons!
I’ve now made a little video to go along with this method for dyeing rice! Please give it a watch and a thumbs up if you enjoyed it. Also, follow along my brand new YouTube channel so I know whether or not people would like me to make more videos too! thanks 🙂
Using exactly the same method as set out in our post about how to dye rainbow rice, I simply tipped some economy rice into giant zip locs, squirted in a large squeeze of each colour neon paint, sealed and distributed the paint until it was evenly covered! SOoooo simple it is quite simply ridiculous.
These are the exact paints that we used. These zip loc bags are a similar size and very secure.
No vinegar is needed. It makes no difference and smells so bad. Just mix the colour through, tip it straight out onto a tray or baking sheet, then leave it to dry! It will be ready in as soon as half an hour and the colours are amazingly bright and cheerful.
This s one of those occasions where I truly believe it looks just as gorgeous when mixed together as when searate. How lovely are those colours?! No-one can resist running their hands through it. 
We tipped it all into a large sensory tub, added some scoops and silicon cupcake cases and they played and played and played. It formed part of Miss 5’s Kindness Elves birthday party are the weekend after we added some gorgeous acrylic gems to represent kind virtues. They all searched through and found them on a treasure hunt, and added them to their heart shaped boxes that they had decorated! 
Find tons more RAINBOW THEMED PLAY & LEARNING here!
And a whole heap of SENSORY PLAY ideas here!
Here are our RICE PLAY archives!
And sooooooo many PLAY RECIPES here too!
If you love this neon rainbow rice please would you share it? Thank you!
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How long do you let it dry before it can be played with??? 🙂
Until it is dry 🙂 Doesn’t take long!
How does this go with those who tend to explore through.. umm… well, taste.
Ha, well like any sensory material, if your child still likes to put things in their mouth then perhaps wait until they’re a little bit older. I have found they don’t try to eat this at all, but they’re all different!
Is this paint a type of acrylic paint? I am unable to obtain the paint you use in the U.S.
Thanks!
It’s just regular kids’ paint! Any will do.