Colourful Number Hunt

Combining coloured rice with number sorting for some productive sensory play.

The set up.

What you need:

- rainbow rice (half fill an empty 1.5l plastic water bottle with white rice, add a generous squirt of food colouring and a few drops of white vinegar, shake well and then lay it out on tin foil for 30 mins to dry)

- large plastic play tub

- selection of numbers (I used magnetic, paper and wooden numbers)

- rainbow cupcake holders with paper numbers stuck to them to create 'number pots'

- Peppa Pig number book ('123 with Peppa')

- selection of scoops and tongs

Step 1: Matching the number pots

Before we delved into the tub full of rice and numbers I asked my son to check that he had the same numbers attached to his pots as he had in his Peppa Pig number book. He noticed that there was 10 in the book but not a 10 number pot so I explained that he didn't need to search from number 10s in the tub.

Matching up the number pots.

Step 2: Sorting out the numbers

My son enjoyed sorting through the rice to find all of the numbers to put in each number pot. He chose to mainly use his hands or the tongs. 

The purpose of the rainbow rice is simply to make the activity more colourful and inviting and to add an element of sensory play. You could use an easier material such as lentils, white rice or even popcorn if you don't have time to dye the rice.

Sorting out the numbers.

Step 3: Enjoying the rice

After my son had sorted out all of the numbers he happily played with the rainbow rice for half an hour. He liked getting to mix all of the colours together and simply transferring the rice between various pots and pans from his play kitchen.

We kept the rice for several months and would get it out for more transferring activities and also for creating rainbow rice constructions sites with as well.

All numbers sorted and enjoying mixing the rice.