When my younger brother was learning to walk, he burned his hands. Severely. He was toddling along, and started to fall, when he grabbed one of our old-fashioned radiators. It left the palms of his hands completely covered in blisters, and I think this is probably the only time I have ever seen my mother in abject terror, and probably the first (& only time) I didn't ask "Why?" before doing as she told me to do. After we got him to the hospital, he spent 3 weeks in the burn unit. The doctor's weren't sure if he'd have full use of his hands from the scarring, so we were given activities to do with him to help stretch the skin, and improve his fine motor skills. He basically had to re-learn how to use his hands.
One of the things was playing in rice. Pick it up, scoop it, squish it, spread it out, etc.
My mom also discovered that she couldn't keep my hands out of it, either. It was permanently added to mom's arsenal of rainy day things to do.
Such a simple, yet amusing thing, and best of all, dirt cheap.
The one problem with play rice is... It looks like regular rice. And once my dad tried to cook it. Only when he saw all the fuzzies, cracker bits, floor pepper, etc, float to the surface, did he realize his mistake.
So I have a fix for that, which is pretty simple... Color some of the rice. Which also comes from my mom, although she never did it. I adapted her colored toasted coconut recipe for using with rice.
What you need:
A big ol' bag of cheap, white rice.
Some type of food coloring- drops, paste, gel, or Kool-Aid packets.
13x9 cake pan, lined with tinfoil. If you want to do 2 colors at once, use 2 small pans, or divide the pan with tinfoil.
Glass or stainless steel bowl
Soup or tablespoon
Slightly warm tap water
Oven preheated to 350
Paste, gel, or Kool-Aid: Take your bowl, put about 1-2 tbs of water in it, and mix in the food coloring/K.A. until it's dissolved. Pour in about a cup of rice, mix until covered. If there are puddles of color at the bottom, add more rice. You want the rice to look glossy, but not have a lot of extra water.
If using liquid color: Put the rice in the bowl first, then drip and mix until the rice is covered.
(will try to add pictures the next time I do these steps... Doh!)
Spread the rice out into your baking pan, it doesn't have to be perfect.
Pop it into the oven for 2-3 minutes.
Remove from oven, and stir. The rice should be mostly dry already, try to get any rice that has stuck to the tinfoil off, and crush up any clumps.
Shove it back in there for another 2 minutes, then repeat the stirring.
The rice should now be dry, if you didn't put too much water.
If it's still wet, put it back in, and stir at 1 minute (or less) intervals. Watch it like a hawk, seriously! It will start becoming brown lightning quick once it's fully dry. Let it cool, and mix it with your white rice.
You can also layer it in jars, and make it pretty for an easy gift! (see below)
Finished results:
The pink & blue rice was made using Wilton paste colors, Christmas Red & Sky Blue. Yeah, it looks orange, but that's my camera. It's actually hot pink. I was not impressed, so I tried something else to get red...
Older siblings will also like it....
Watch out for this position, though, it means you're going to have a roomfull of rice in 3...2...1...
Gifting: Layer your colors with white rice in a way that is pleasing to you... Very simple. The ones with the wavy lines was as easy as poking a chopstick down the sides to make the dips, like sand bottle art. These are going to live with my mom & my brother for my nephew to play with. I'm sure my brother will at least get a kick out of it. :)
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