This, my friends, is our rice box. It's the newest addition to our playtime stash and a huge hit with the boys, especially Boy #4, my tractor-and-truck-loving 3-yr-old.As you can see, it's pretty simple: just a big plastic container filled with rice. In this case, 20 lbs. of rice. (At least that's what it was initially. I'm willing to bet we're down to 18 lbs. or so at present!)
I won't pretend it was my idea. I got the idea when Boy #4 visited a friend a week or so ago came home all excited about their "rice box." The friend's Mom explained the concept to me, and since we were headed to the grocery store anyway, I figured, why not?
Within minutes of coming home, I'd dumped the rice into the container (which we already had), and a few seconds after that, all the boys descended on it. Everyone, from the oldest to the youngest, enjoys playing with it.
Yes, it's messy. But it's also easy to clean up, and for the fun they've had with it, totally worth it. Cheap, easy, multi-sensory and imaginative -- my kind of plaything!
Love your rice box- it is actually common in therapy clinics for kids, but i never made one at home- I have an adult version at work- with a deeper container with hidden common objects like paperclips- it is a great sensory retraining tool after a hand injury plus fine motor prehension. You could bury little treasures like pennies, or pen caps, bottle cap,or plastic dinosaurs sometime and enjoy their "finds" that they dig up unexpectedly. Have fun! Great idea! It has so many therapeutic uses!
ReplyDeleteMy dd who is 5 would love that.
ReplyDeletei had a sandbox for my students...rice would have made for so much easier clean ups! every time we used it, we found sand for a week! keegan is getting a rice box within the next week.
ReplyDeleteBelieve it or not, I'd actually let the boys try flour a couple of times -- flour on cookie sheets with Matchbox cars. Which is all well and good, except that 1) my boys really get into what they're doing, and 2) flour makes dust. Lots and lots of dust!
ReplyDeleteHope Keegan enjoys his rice box!