Christmas Scented Sensory Rice Play

Our first Christmas Spirit Play experience this season is a Peppermint Scented Red & Green Rice Tactile tub.  I dyed a heap of rice with red & green colouring, then as it dried I added Peppermint essence to give it a christmassy smell. It was divine!

Once ready I put in a bag of Christmas themed sequins and glitter, plastic candy canes, some Christmas decorations and Christmas tree baubles. Dimples contrasted the red and the green baubles with the red and green rice. I had taken the ends off the bauble and Dimples started putting grains of rice into them. The hole was tiny so this was a great fine motor task for him & to add to the sensory delight, he found that if he shook them they made a musical ding.

Eventually he mixed the colours around, enjoyed some pretend play with the reindeer & elf figures, they made tracks, the elf rode the reindeer around and then they tripped over the decorations and got buried. Dimples commented on how yummy the rice smelt.



There was a stray bauble that ended up smashed on the ground, they are plastic so I think Dimples had something to do with it 'smashing' he used this cue and filled the open bauble up to plant candy canes in it.

The tactile tub was a great sensory experience with the contrasting colours that were visually appealing, the sound of the rice pouring and flicking around, along with the scent but it also provided a goo imaginary Christmas scene. After a while Dimples decided to fence in the reindeer so they could escape. He very carefully piled up rice and made a rail out of baubles and plastic candy canes.

 

After a while when he started to lack interest I added some more elements. Funnels and large plastic kids tweezers.  He did his usually pouring and experimented with the different funnels then very cleverly used the large tweezers to grab the large Christmas sequins. More fine motor practice and sorting through the rice to find the same sort of sequins. this was time consuming and required lots of focused attention.

Have you played with scented Rice before?

What Scent have you used?

Here are some of our previous posts using rice. They're always a hit! 

Coloured Rice Construction Bin

Lavender Dyed Zen Rice Garden

Rainbow Rice Play

Learning Concepts:
Sensory Play
Tactile experiences
Imaginary & pretend play
Exploring Christmas Theme
Fine Motor skills
Sorting

Ideas for Extending:
Make a funnel tree like our split pea funnel tree
Early Measurement principles
Use small figurines to make it a small world
Use sand equipment, like a sand mill to pour rice in

Happy Adventures

A Coloured Rice Quarry - Pretend Construction

Last week I colored some rice, adding some Peppermint essence so it smelt super Yummy. 

I had no idea what I was going to do with the rice but Dimples hasn't had a Tactile Play tub in a while so I dyed some red, yellow and green. I dyed the rice by getting 3 separate bowls of dry rice, adding a smidgen of water and some color, mix it all around and let it sit for at least half an hour, then spread it evenly out on paper toweling and let it dry for a day. 

Dimples had seen it and asked to use his cars in it, so I set up a mini Construction Quarry. I kept the rice in a tray on top of a spill mat and laid it out separately (knowing that it would get mixed up- but that's part of the fun), collected some dump trucks and construction vehicles, trailors, some plastic trees, traffic cones and traffic lights. It looked very bright and visually appealing but it smelt minty and fresh also.

Dimples transferred colors dumping one lot on top of another color then he used the roller to flatten piles, and the snow scraper to clear a path. He went through and worked out which vehicles made the best tracks and which ones carried a trailer full of rice. It was a pretend quarry and there was lots of clever narration from Dimples being heard as I let him play freely.

He had his go at mowing the green rice and eventually all the colours got mixed together, he made a huge pile that was a hill then rolled it flat. He did try to separate and sort some colours out into dump trucks once they were all mixed up but it proved to be too time consuming.

Dimples did a great job at containing the rice in the tray, even after lots of trucks had to have a go at making burn out tracks and " skids" through the rice, then he parted the rice down the center. All the tipper trucks got loaded up and made a big pile, they were dumping and hauling rice from one end of the tray to the other, Dimples was pretending it was a Dangerous Construction site and had his sign at the site of danger.

Dimples keep mentioning how yummy it smelt, at one stage the little plastic trees were pine trees because it smelt so nice. The pretend construction quarry, clever and cute narration and imaginary play went on for a hour or so. He thoroughly enjoyed it and when I left him to have free play it was nice to listen to his little imaginary world come to life.

Learning Concepts:

Colour identification

Tactile/Sensory Play

Developing imagination

Imitating real life through play

Fine Motor

Colour sorting

Ideas for Extension:

Large Construction Play in Corn

 Pretend Rally Car Tracks in Mud

Car & Construction Ideas:  Playdough tracks, Tire Paint Printing, Dirt digging & more
A pretend play car wash

Lavender Rice Mini Zen Garden

Mini Calming Zen Garden

 

Soon I will be implementing a chill out corner as a discipline tool, instead of usign the negative isolated time out, this chill out with follow the basic principle of time out but will be used as a calming or settling technique, not as a punishment. There will be no time limit and the space will be a calming, relaxed, quiet and soothing atmosphere where Dimples (and I) can go to re-centre and chill out. It is still in the making, so look out for that post. Here is one of the calming activities that will be in the chill out corner.

 

This is a form of Miniature Zen garden. It is made with Lavender Dyed Rice. I first soaked the rice in purple colour, drained and dried it. Then soaked it again, this time in Lavender Oil. It was a success and has the nicest sweetest fragrance. 

I found a suitable storage tin, an old short bread tin to keep it in but while in use, the lid works perfectly as the base of the Zen garden. I gave Dimples a scoop, a fork, a swizle stick for drawing patterns through the rice and some smooth blue and white pebbles, then i added a buddah statue and an elephant magnet.

The smell was definitly strong enough to soothe the soul. As Dimples played he breathed it in and seemed very content and calm as he designed a little garden with the rocks.

 

He buried the stones so that only the tops were out, and scooped the rice around. Lavender is said to be a stress relief, or a relaxing smell that helps ease the mind and the body. The colours of blue and purple are also said to be cool calming colours, so these were the basis of the zen garden.

Dimples enjoyed the activity and stuck with it a lot longer than I had imagined. I am not 100% sure if it did have a calming affect on him, or if he was already in a good mood but he was definitly was at peace and sat very quietly fiddling around with full concerntration. Then we packed it all up in the tin and will put in the chill out corner.

Bright sparkley Rainbow Rice Box

Rainbow Sensory Box

To brighten up a gloomy rainy day this is the only way to play: Bright & Sparkley Messy Fun all in the one box.

Rainbow rice: Dyed with food colouring in individual cups then set out to dry.

Rainbow Sequins

Rainbox Pompoms

Rainbow Cups, utensils, tongs and funnels.

Filling up cups and pouring them out

 Scooping up the fine granules of rice

Using the tongs to collect pompoms

Measuring ingredients

Making Pretend cup cakes

Pouring through the funnel; what would fit?

Sorting through rainbow colours

Mixing Rainbow ice-cream