I have seen various sensory activities out there that involve pasta, rice, beans and such. Some of them include dying the items to make them more interesting. I have been wanting to do the dried rice but I feel like it would be SUPER messy inside with a toddler, so I went with dying pasta. I have seen a few different methods out there on how to do it using different things such as vinegar, rubbing alcohol and water. The rubbing alcohol sounded best because you don’t have to worry about it making the pasta soggy like you do with the other two.

So I took 2 cups of pasta and put it in a zip lock bag (gallon sized, and make sure they are the really good ones because mine were from the dollar store and got holes in them). Once the pasta is in the zip lock bag add in about 1/4 of a cup of rubbing alcohol. Put in a TON of food coloring, seal the bag and shake it around. Drain the liquid and place on top of paper towel on a cookie sheet and let dry. 

At first my colors didn’t look very good, but as they dried they got better looking. I put them in a tin from the dollar store and we practiced scooping them up and putting them into another bowl (a record bowl I made). We stirred them and scooped them, and emptied them all over the floor (much easier to pick up than rice). It was a lot of fun and when she gets a bit older we can practice stringing them.