Get hands-on with our St. Patrick’s Day Rainbow Rice Addition Sensory Bin to work on addition equations with your child or students! My kids love all things rainbow-themed so I just knew they would love this activity. It works great with small groups or as an independent activity!
*Pair with our St. Patrick’s Day Centers and Activities for Pre-K & Kindergarten!
Rainbow Rice Addition Sensory Bin
This super fun sensory addition activity begins with prepping the rainbow rice. We use this rice for many different sensory bins and activities. It is definitely worth taking the time to make! And it uses some common supplies you probably already have on hand.
Supplies needed for the rainbow rice:
- Rice
- Food coloring
- Ziploc bags
- White vinegar
- Trays
Begin by adding a cup of rice to a Ziploc bag along with a few drops of food coloring and ¼ teaspoon of vinegar. Give the bag a vigorous shake until all of the rice is coated in the coloring.
Spread the rice out over a tray and leave to dry for a couple of hours. Repeat for each of the colors you wish to use in your math addition sensory bin!
For the rest of the activity, you will need:
- Rainbow rice
- Golden coins
- Cotton balls
- Giant tweezers
- Dice
- Whiteboard and dry erase marker
Pour all of the different colored rice into a deep dish or tray once it is dry and mix it all together.
Add in at least 6 golden coins and 6 cotton balls to the tray. Lay out the dice, tweezers, whiteboard, and dry eraser marker, and you are ready to play!
How to Play
I set up this sensory bin at home for my son to play with after school. I often include a sensory element in our after-school activities. This gives my kids a chance to relax and unwind after a busy day and they don’t even notice that they are learning!
I try to include all of my children in as many of our activities as I can, and sensory play is a great way to achieve this. During this activity, I was able to set up a smaller bin with the same elements, plus cups and spoons for my youngest to play with, while I helped her big brother with the math element of his sensory bin.
Once Bella was busy giving her fine motor skills a good workout with lots of scooping and pouring in her sensory bin, Freddie began his game with a roll of the dice.
After he rolled the dice, he recorded the number that he had rolled onto his whiteboard (his teacher has asked us to do lots of practice writing out numbers to reinforce what they have been doing in school). Then he took the giant tweezers and removed the corresponding number of cotton balls.
RELATED RESOURCE: March Print – That’s It! Kindergarten Math and Literacy Printables
He rolled the dice again, and after writing down this number, he used the tweezers to remove the corresponding number of golden coins.
He now had two sets of items ready to add together.
Freddie lined them all up to work out the sum of the two sets and moved each item to one side as he counted them all to see how many he had.
Then he wrote down the answer to the math equation on his whiteboard and it was ready for me to check.
This sensory addition game is super fun and one your kids are sure to love! To differentiate for your preschooler, have them roll the dice and count out that many objects. For 1st graders, try adding 3 sets of numbers together!
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What a fun learning activity! Thanks for allowing me to share in my St. Patrick’s Day Roundup 🙂