Coloring Rice

So I thought I'd share my first experience trying out this whole colored rice thing. I was planning on using rubbing alcohol since most of the recipes call for that, but I wound up having none even though I could have sworn we did. So I decided to try it with vinegar. I read on one site that vinegar marks for lumpy rice, but I figured I'd give it a shot with a small batch and see what happened.

I used vinegar, white rice, food coloring. 

Preheat the oven to 175. 

I had some cheapo plastic bags to mix it in. I know many places suggest using an empty butter tub or something, but the bag worked fine for me. I also liked squishing it around in there. =)

I used about 1 -2 tbsp of vinegar (sort of just splashed some in the bag, I didn't feel like measuring exactly), 1 cup of rice, and a few drops of food coloring. This coloring is supposed to be pink, not red... just so you don't think it was too diluted. This was exactly the color it was supposed to be! Yay. 

Smoosh it around. It feels cool. 

If I was a nicer mommy I may have let Kayla help. But I didn't feel like dealing with spilled rice, or ripped bags of food coloring, or anything else. Perhaps another day now that I know it works. 

Then I laid it out in as flat a layer I could on a tin-foil covered cookie sheet. 

Pop in the over for about 10 minutes or until the rice is dried. The first batch was entirely dry by the time 10 minutes was up. The second batch I made I think I used a tiny bit more vinegar (downside of not measuring, I know) so it needed an extra 5 minutes. 

Pour into a container- I used an empty coffee creamer container. I think when I have more colors made this is going to look really pretty all together. 

Tada!

As a note- the color seemed to come out fine to me with the vinegar, and while I did note a small amount of the clumping I read about, the rice fell apart easily once dried so I didn't think it was an issue at all. I'll try rubbing alcohol next to see what the difference winds up being. I've heard the colors are more vibrant. 

It's a less annoying alternative to glitter in pictures and when made in large enough patches can be used in lieu of sand. Put into a small plastic bottle with other small objects, it can be a find "find the objects" sort of game, or used in sensory boxes as a neat feeling filler. Personally, I am thinking some 'sand art' is in order.

 I'm mostly just waiting on some more empty creamer containers to make some more colors. Need to drink more coffee, it seems. Twist my arm a little harder, why don't ya!

Letter K week (1/23 - 1/27)

We had another pretty good week! I wish I had the energy to bounce around to places like I might normally, but I'm almost 37 weeks pregnant at this point and have officially reached maximum capacity. I'm not bouncing anywhere. 

Anyway, Here's some of the things we did for letter K Week- 

First, here's a couple of shots of the misc. work/art board- It filled up quickly. 

Our out of control fridge door (sideways, sorry) and more stuff. A drawing of Uncle Keith and Aunt Keri, conveniently letter K names, some Kipper and Hello Kitty coloring, etc.  Kayla is very proud of everything she does:

One of the worksheets- I love how she writes her name!

Letter picture board. Don't ask why there are two of the same Koala papers.

We looked through a magazine and cut out all the K's we found, and then glue them onto a paper- 

I made up a game for her to play that she wound up loving. I called it Kangaroo K Hunt. I made a little pocket for her to wear and pretend she was a Kangaroo, and just wrote a bunch of letters on some papers. She had to hop around the room like a  Kangaroo and search for all the K's. If I had a laminater, I'd maybe find a cute baby Kangaroo graphic and write the letters on baby Kangaroos, so that she could pretend she was a mommy Kangaroo putting the babies in her pocket. 

As it was, and being that I did this entirely last minute, this worked just as well. She wanted to play over and over for a long time. 

I also did another Kangaroo jumping variation where I laid them on the floor, and she had to jump to the other side of the room only using the K's. 

Some more misc stuff:

Drawing lines to K words-

Kite-

For character traits we talked a lot about Kindness and I think that was the most successful of everything we did this week. She really got the idea and likes to tell us now when we do or say something that is Kind. 

I started by talking about what Kindness meant to her, and we drew some pictures. She first said that Kindness was giving hugs- so I drew a picture for her. Don't laugh. And then She said that it was also Sharing her toys with Emma, her cousin.  So I had her draw that. 

And she loves this- her Kindness tree. Every time she does something kind we add a flower. I didn't take an updated picture, but there are more flowers than this now. She had a very Kind week. :)

She also decided to pick some of her toys to give to her little sister who is due within the next few weeks. I was so proud! She took several of her stuffed animals and some of the baby toys and put them on one of the shelves in her sister's room. So sweet!!

Kiwi:

We talked about what a Kiwi looked and felt like. She noticed how scratchy and rough the outside was, and that it was brown, but when we cut it open it was green and very juicy! 

(The blue seeds were a fluke- her Blue marker had the black cap on it for some reason!) 

I think that's all for the pictures I have this week!