Good afternoon, dear needlewomen!
What to do with a child? There have already been several articles on this topic on our website, for example, we made crafts from buttons, salty modeling dough and slimes. In this article, you will learn what games you can play with cereals, how to paint cereals with your own hands for games with a child.
Have you tried giving your child cereals for games? This is a very interesting pastime with a child, besides playing with such objects (under adult supervision) affect fine motor skills, enhancing brain function.
Groats games
So, we offer you several options for playing with colored cereals and pasta.
1. Sensory boxes
2. Sandbox at home (from rice, semolina)
3. Dry painting (grain applications on paper)
4. Learning colors
5. Games that develop fine motor skills (find an object, pour cereal into a container, pour it with a spoon)
6. You can make artificial snow, sea, meadow, earth and so on from cereals - this develops the child's imagination.
7. You can make a sorter from colored cereals (Sort colors)
8. Colored pasta can be used to make beads
9. Cereals scattered on the floor - a good foot massage
10. DIY crafts (postcards, panels)
11. "Sand animation" on glass or plastic
13. You can hide metal objects in cereal and find them with a magnet.
14. Games in confectioner (colored sprinkling of rice)
15. You can make a kaleidoscope out of colored cereals.
16. Colored rice in a jar is a beautiful interior decoration.
17. Colored cereals can be poured into a bottle with a funnel.
P.S. So, with the onset of the Easter season, stock up on dyes in the store and dye cereals all year long, make plasticine at home, and many other interesting things.
An educational activity for a child with colored objects, bright things and multi-colored cereals becomes much more exciting!
This type of creativity is very common, especially in kindergartens. Applications from cereals have many advantages. Even kids can cope with this task, and the plus is that scissors are not needed in the process of creating a masterpiece. Also, motor skills affect the brain, so that the baby's speech develops faster. Also, busting grits has a good effect on pinch reflexes, naughty hands learn to be obedient.
Groats on paper are glued to PVA glue (glue - pencil). First, draw the outlines on the paper with a pencil, then glue the grits of different colors.
Groats application video
The sensory box is a beautiful, useful, exciting and imaginative and fine motor skills toy. And good on a budget. Any parent can make a sensory box for a child. The sensory box is a container with cereals, pebbles or liquid filler and game elements of your choice.
Touch box video
How to color rice
You can use several different options on how to make cereals colored for games with a child: Use food coloring, brilliant green, iodine, chalk and pastel. In relation to the child, first of all, there must be safety, you can choose for yourself the most acceptable way of coloring the cereal, depending on the age of the child. For the smallest, it is recommended to use natural dyes or food coloring, for older children, you can experiment with other painting methods.
Materials for coloring rice:
- Food coloring How to color rice at home? You can use food coloring, such as Easter egg coloring kits, to color rice. Rice will be painted with bright, saturated colors. Also, the croup will not fade for a long time, will not stain the hands.
- Natural dyes: onion husks will turn rice brown, for this, boil the husks and hold the rice in the broth. For a pink color, squeeze beetroot juice, add vinegar, and color the rice. Red rice can be obtained by holding it in a strong hibiscus broth. Yellow rice is obtained with turmeric, a beautiful coffee color can be obtained with coffee, chocolate or cocoa. You can also achieve an orange color by soaking the grits in carrot juice. Coloring rice with natural dyes is suitable for those who do not have food coloring on hand or do not want to use them for safety reasons, the disadvantage of this method is that the grits are not as saturated colors and the color fades over time.
- Medications: Zelenka, iodine, potassium permanganate
- Gouache, watercolor, finger paints. Divide the rice among several containers, it is better to take plastic cups. Add gouache and a little water to them, mix and leave for an hour. After that, pour the cereal on paper and let it dry for a day. If the rice is dry, you can make applications from it. It is better not to play with such rice, it stains the hands. The rice is slightly rough to the touch.
How to color rice with food coloring? Very simple, besides, the rice is bright, smooth, the paint does not fade and does not get your hands dirty.
We need:
- Rice (round or long)
- Disposable cups or any container that you can then throw away
- Food colorings
- Vinegar
- baking sheet
- Baking paper or foil
Pour hot water into glasses
Dissolve food coloring, you can mix colors (for example, you get purple by mixing blue with pink, and light green by mixing yellow with green)
Add some vinegar to the water.
Then mix the food coloring well and pour the rice into the bowl.
Leave the rice in the water for an hour, then drain the water.
Dry the rice a little in glasses, then spread it on a baking sheet on foil or baking paper, dry it in the oven or in the sun. The second option will take longer.
After the rice is dyed, you can use it for games, applications, sensory boxes! The child will like the game with dyed rice and can keep the child busy for a long time.
Games with grits of preschool children should be strictly under the supervision of adults!
Text prepared by: Veronica
Turn a faceless grain into a rainbow! A step-by-step master class on how to properly color rice with food coloring and ideas for using colored rice in sensory games and children's creativity: appliqués, crafts, dry painting.
How to dye rice at home
If you need to get multi-colored cereals for sensory boxes, creativity and educational games, it is recommended to take long-grain white rice, it is harder and stronger.
We offer three color options:
- Coloring rice with food coloring. As a result, the colored grains have a smooth surface and a rich, bright color that does not fade over time.
- Painting rice with gouache. As a result, the croup turns out to be rough and after active games loses its original color.
- Coloring with natural dyes. These are spinach juice, beetroot, turmeric, saffron. Naturally dyed rice takes on only a slight sheen, and it is difficult to make the color brighter.
To color rice you need:
- dye;
- dishes or a ziplock bag;
- gloves;
- essential oil (optional)
How to paint
Add a little dye to dry rice (no more than ½ teaspoon per 1 kg of cereal). The intensity of the color will depend on the amount of dye. Dilute dry dye in a few drops of water. Do not add a lot of liquid: this can cause the cereal to swell. Liquid and gel-like compositions (gouache) are not diluted with water. Mix the cereal thoroughly. To do this, it is convenient to place the mass in a ziplock bag and shake well.
If you mix with a spoon in a bowl, then in order to avoid staining your hands, we recommend doing this with gloves.
After laying out the colored rice on a diaper or sheet of paper and let it dry for several hours. During this time, the dye will be absorbed and will not get your hands dirty during the game. 
If you want the rainbow mass to have a pleasant smell, add a few drops of your favorite essential oil while mixing the ingredients.
Ideas for using colored rice
Colored rice is great for filling sensory boxes. The educational game will help the child to expand the tactile experience - he will be able to touch, pour, explore, dig in, dig, search for toys. Using colored rice in applications and crafts, you diversify the creative process. These useful activities with cereals contribute to the development of fine motor skills in children. Colored rice can be used to decorate the interior. We offer ideas for inspiration.
Sensory boxes
To make a themed sensory box, you may need: thematic sets of figurines (c), various decorative pebbles and other small things, spill containers, tweezers, a spoon, a magnifying glass.
Sensory boxes on the marine theme. To make the game, you may need: a set of marine life and amphibians (c), decorative pebbles for an aquarium (c), shells, toys, ships and boats (c), felt for making plants.
Sensory box with bugs. You will need: a set of "Insects" (c), plants, tweezers, a magnifying glass.
An Easter sensory box may include: Easter decor, figurines of bunnies, chickens, eggs, a set of curly buttons (c), decorative pebbles, large beads.
Rainbow sensory box with pom-poms (c) and fairy ponies (c, c) for girls.
A real construction site for boys with a constructor (in, in).
Applications and crafts from colored rice
With the help of colored cereals, you can create any picture. To do this, draw a picture in advance on a piece of paper or cardboard. Choose images with large elements so that a small artist can easily work with a sketch. For applications from cereals, ready-made pictures from coloring pages for kids are great.
The algorithm for creating an application from cereals is simple. Apply glue in a thick layer on the surface of the pattern and lay out the rice. Wait for the glue to dry and remove excess grits. Fill in parts of the picture gradually, like a mosaic. You can use double sided tape instead of glue. You can download the "Mouse" template for kids. 
Simple application and colored rice "Flower"
Application of rice "Rocket"
Application from cereals "Cactus".
Craft "Donut" from a paper plate and colored rice. 
Drawing with colored rice
Drawing with colored rice is an interesting technique and a great pastime for young children. The surface of a picture of cereals always turns out to be embossed.
Consider three ways to draw:
Finger painting on a layer of rice is the easiest grits painting technique for toddlers. Pour a layer of rice on a tray with sides, smooth it out - that's the canvas for painting. Let the child draw a sun, a flower, etc. with his finger. Drawing patterns on croup develops imagination and fine motor skills in children.
Drawings from cereals "in bulk" - this technique is similar to sand painting.
Drawing with groats on plasticine: cover a cardboard with a thin layer of plasticine, fill the necessary areas of the drawing with rice. For this procedure, it is better to use stencils. It is possible to decorate individual elements with a cereal texture on the finished plasticine picture.
Colored rice for decoration
The bottles, original in shape, filled with colored layers of rice, will be a wonderful decoration for the interior.
An interesting solution for a candlestick.
What needlewomen come up with to surprise everyone with their creative abilities! So, recently the technique of drawing with colored sand has become very popular. You can buy ready-made material, but it is easier and cheaper to make it yourself from semolina. Today we will discuss how to color semolina for crafts.
Variety of options
If you decide to do this type of creativity as drawing with colored sand, then you need to stock up on material. Semolina is ideal for these purposes, although some needlewomen use finely ground salt.
You can stock up on creative material for future use, but for this you need to learn how to paint semolina in different colors. For coloring semolina, you can use gouache, watercolor or acrylic paints, colored pencil leads, crayons or food coloring.
Read also:
All staining techniques are almost the same, but there are certain nuances:
- colored sand should be crumbly, so semolina should be carefully sieved;
- gouache or other paints must be diluted with water;
- so that the cereal does not turn into lumps, add a little alcohol or vodka;
- be sure to dry the colored cereals at room temperature on a sheet of paper;
- thanks to alcohol, semolina dries in a matter of minutes.
On a note! The dry method of coloring semolina with colored crayons or pencil leads does not require drying.
Experienced craftsmen advise preparing colored semolina in advance and storing it in a glass container. Subject to all the rules and thorough drying of the semolina, the material will be stored for a very long time.
We paint semolina in all the colors of the rainbow
How to paint semolina for crafts with gouache? There is nothing difficult in this. It is important to accurately observe the proportions and dry the colored sand thoroughly. Alcohol, as you know, evaporates quickly, so the colored cereal will dry almost immediately.
Advice! If, nevertheless, the semolina has turned into a lump, knead it with your hands or a rolling pin.
- semolina;
- cup;
- water;
- tablespoon;
- gouache paints;
- brushes;
- medical alcohol;
- sieve.
Step by step description of the process:
On a note! For coloring semolina, it is better to use plastic spoons and disposable glasses. The more dye you add, the richer the shade will be.
Advice! First, pour half a serving of semolina into the liquid, and then gradually add the rest.
Colored powder should be stored in dry glass containers tightly closed with a lid.
Using food coloring
Many needlewomen are interested in how to color semolina with food coloring. You can use dry or liquid. Staining techniques will be slightly different, let's look at both.
Required materials and tools:
- ½ st. semolina;
- 0.5 st. l. vinegar with a concentration of 9%;
- a few drops of food coloring.
Step by step description of the process:
- We spread the sifted semolina in a glass or plastic container.
- Add a few drops of food coloring and table vinegar.
- We close the container with a lid and shake the semolina thoroughly so that the dye is evenly distributed.
- You can paint the grits with your hands, but in this case, wear latex gloves.
- Line an ovenproof dish with parchment paper. Spread the colored semolina on top.
- We heat the oven to a temperature mark of 180-200 °.
- Dry the colored semolina in the oven for five minutes.
On a note! If you use powdered dye, then the semolina coloring technique will be different. Place semolina in gauze cut and mix with dry dye. Dip gauze with semolina into boiling water for literally 1-2 minutes. Then similarly colored sand must be dried.
Briefly about other methods
If you need to prepare a large batch of colored sand, then it is better to use a kitchen gadget, such as a food processor or blender. In this case, you do not need to add medical alcohol.
We dilute gouache or acrylic paints with water. Pour the colored water into the blender container, add the sifted semolina and beat everything thoroughly. After such a procedure, colored sand must be dried.
Advice! If you're going to mix different colors of sand right away, be sure to thoroughly rinse the container and blender whisks.
In haste, colored sand is prepared using pencil leads. The stylus of the desired color is crushed to a powder consistency with a blade or grater. Then colored pollen is mixed with semolina and thoroughly ground until a homogeneous mass is formed. Similarly, colored pollen is prepared using crayons for drawing or wax pencils.
The first children's crafts are usually made from various cereals, rice, buckwheat, millet, even seeds. Usually rice is considered the most convenient, especially when it is coarse-grained, but to make it interesting for children to make pictures from rice, you can make it colorful. How to color rice for crafts, food coloring, gouache, watercolor, I will teach you now. In principle, the method of painting is one, just many take different dyes.
In order to color rice for, in addition to paints, vinegar must also be used, with the help of which the paint lies smoothly on the rice and soaks into the grains. Plastic bags are also needed, rice with paint is placed directly there. Next, I will demonstrate everything in the photo instructions, it is much clearer there. And do not forget that children like oblong coarse-grained rice the most.
What you need to color rice:
—
Rice.
—
Any colors.
—
Vinegar.
—
Polyethylene bags.
Getting everything ready to start. Rice must be dry, it does not need to be washed. Vinegar take absolutely any.
Dilute vinegar and paint on the eye. The less vinegar, the richer the color will be. Pour the rice into the bag.
Pour the paint into the rice bag.
Close the bag and wrinkle it thoroughly so that the paint gets on each grain and soaks all the rice.
When all the rice is colored, you can pour it into a pile to dry completely. This is how I made six different colors.
The colors look beautiful when they are not mixed too much, but poured onto a plate, separating them from each other.
The child will really like this colored rice and he will play with it.
You can also pour it into a jar, in layers. It also looks cute.
And these are the pictures children will make with the help of the material we made for them.
How to color rice
I found several recipes for coloring rice at home. After I try them myself, I can recommend which one is more convenient and better (of course, we are not talking about coloring with a gouache brush) :)
1. To color rice, you must:
Raw white rice (long rice is more commonly used, it is firmer and stronger)
Food coloring or any water based paint
Place 1/2 cup of rice in a clean, resealable bowl or plastic container. Add a few drops of food coloring and 1/2 tbsp. vinegar to set the paint. Shake everything to mix well and color. Put rice on parchment paper and bake at about 200 degrees for 45 minutes.
2. Mix rice with dry dye in gauze or a cloth, and dip gauze with rice in boiling water for a few seconds. After you take out the rice, grind them a little with your fingers.
3. For the next method, you need: rice, food coloring, vinegar, plastic bags with a zip lock, although any other package is possible, but the tightness will not be the same.
Mix a couple of drops of vinegar with a little food coloring. The color saturation of the rice will depend on its quantity. Pour rice and dye into the bag. Release the air from the bag as much as possible and carefully move the rice with paint in the closed state. Pour onto paper and let dry.
6. Mix 1 tsp. ethyl alcohol and a fairly large amount of food coloring. Pour about ¾ cup of rice into this mixture and stir well (you can shake everything in a well-closed cellophane bag). Pour rice onto foil to dry.
6. Water "spoils" the rice, so the less water is used, the more contact with water, the better. For dyes, other solvents (alcohol, glycerin, various oils, etc.) can be used. If it is necessary to make dyed rice firm and durable, then, in addition to the dye, a relatively large amount of salt must be added to the water (to make a saturated saline solution). Thus, the rice will be saturated with salt and will no longer be brittle and brittle.
8. For the company, you can experiment with salt and semolina.
How to color salt:
Mix ¼ cup salt with food coloring in a bowl and let dry. You can dry in the microwave for 1 minute, spreading the salt in a thin layer on a plate (put a glass of water in the microwave along with the plate).
How to color mango. For this, semolina is ground with colored chalk. The result should be something similar to colored sand.
There is another option, but more difficult and dirty. They can paint semolina or sand. In small containers (for example, yogurt jars), pour a little water, gouache and PVA glue so that it is not liquid, but the color is bright and there is enough glue. Mix and add sand. In each jar you will get a sand mixture of a different color. It must be applied with a spatula to the prepared drawing, and then dried. As a result, the sand will hold tight and shine.
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