Rice Center
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I got a rice center set up for the kids on Friday night. It was actually the first thing I did when we came in from the store — even before I put the cold stuff in the fridge!
My friend, Susan has one and the kids play in it every time we go over there. Brian said that the kids wouldn’t play in it if we had one here. Um, as you can see, he was wrong.
I kept getting comments like:
This is so cool, Mom!
Thank you, so much, Mom!
You even got us the stuff to put in it! Thanks, Mom!
It was so worth the effort, which was minimal, and the money, which wasn’t too bad, to put it together. I already had the measuring cups and spoons to put in it, which I’d bought a long time ago with plans to do something like this, but I could have easily picked some up at the dollar store. I also had the funnel and I save the drink bottles from my mom’s house last week.
I bought a 2 qt. Rubbermaid container, which was around $8 (all the $5 off-brand containers were sold out and I wasn’t willing to wait another week to put the center together). I was a little surprised at how expensive the rice was. I bought a giant bag of Wal-mart’s store brand rice for $15. I didn’t think that the one bag of rice was going to be enough, but it was plenty.
The kids – all of them, surprisingly – have had a blast measuring and pouring the rice and burying their arms and small toys in it. My friend, Susan, has her rice center sitting on a kid’s table, which is nice because everyone can stand around it and play with the box sitting at a comfortable level. We just sit ours in the floor or on the kitchen table.
My only suggestion, if you decide to make a rice center, would be to make sure it’s somewhere that is easily swept or vacuumed. The rice gets everywhere, even when the kids really are being careful.
Kris Bales is a newly-retired homeschool mom and the quirky, Christ-following, painfully honest founder (and former owner) of Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. She has a pretty serious addiction to sweet tea and Words with Friends. Kris and her husband of over 30 years are parents to three amazing homeschool grads. They share their home with three dogs, two cats, a ball python, a bearded dragon, and seven birds.
My kids love the rice center, too.
I hate to sweep, so that’s my excuse as to why we don’t have one!
We’ll just go to your house and Susan’s!!
For therapy that I do with little kids, I often use a rubbermaid tub of white beans with little toys hidden inside. They love it!
This kind of thing is LOADS of fun! We do the same thing with baking soda. I let them do it on the carpet since it has the added advantage of being a deodorizer. 🙂
I love this. You are so creative and hands-on!
That does look like fun! My kids like digging in the dirt, but this would be great for my little ones to play with. I can see their favorite puppies buried already. 😉
I love it that even the older kids are involved in the rice!!
We have a water table that’s been waiting for something like this. Perfect 🙂 Thanks for the awesome idea. I can’t wait to set one up!!
This must be the next step up from cornmeal letters, LOL. Great idea!
AtHomeScience
homeschoolblogger/MusingMom
We have a bean center. Lol! I like these ideas dont you.