Neon Rice Sensory Bin

This is Day 2 of our 31 Day Sensory Play Challenge and today’s sensory item is rice. We love rice sensory bin play – especially with rainbow rice. However, I had the perfect items to create an unusual rice sensory bin for today’s challenge. Over the Summer I entered a competition hosted by Children Are Welcome and won neon paint from Rainbow Creations and a handheld UV blacklight. It was finally time to make a neon rice sensory bin!

Making the neon rice was easy. I poured economy rice into a zip-loc bag along with a dollop of neon paint. I closed the zip-loc bag up and gave it to Adam. He squeezed and shook the bag around until the paint had covered all the rice. I laid the rice onto a baking tray for it to dry whilst I repeated the same procedure for the other colours.

The rice only took a few minutes to dry but I waited for night fall before pouring the neon coloured rice into a plastic box.

We placed the Tuff Spot Tray (affiliate link) on the living room floor and ensured the curtains were shut tight. It felt strange turning the lights off in order to play! It was pitch black until we turned on the Handheld UV Blacklight (affiliate link).

We were really impressed with the results. The neon paint made the rice glow. The blue paint worked the best. I added some neon plastic tubes and cups for Adam to use.

I had expected Adam to not like playing in the dark but I couldn’t have been more wrong. He absolutely loved it. Adam spent ages scooping up the neon rice and pouring it out onto the tuff spot. He enjoyed mark making in the rice and watching the rice fall from above him. The neon rice sensory bin will certainly be reused again and again.