At home we usually do relaxing activities before bedtime. For children it is a good way to go to bed, with a clear mind and no excess of stimuli that can affect the way they sleep that night.
We try to turn off the television at least an hour before bedtime and say we try because the rules are to skip them, of course and if I say that there are days when my son does not eat dinner watching drawings, he would be lying ...
Sensory games help us relax. In this case, we decided to use an element that my son loves to play: rice. Putting your hand in a boat with rice, flour or sugar is something you like to do from a very young age.
The idea of the game is to dye rice the color of lavender and flavor it with natural lavender. We put the rice in one or more buckets and hide toys or elements that we have found in nature (such as beach shells, forest branches, leaves ...).
Necessary material
- 2 bags of rice
- 1 or more cuvettes
- food coloring (violet or red combined with blue)
- spoon
- 2 plastic bags (freezing goes perfect)
- a couple of lavender branches
- toys
You can find lavender in many places, we buy it in a herbalist next to the house, Lucas loves to enter and play to guess the smells of herbs, the lady of the store always gives her a new twig and explains what plant it is and he smells interestingly as he hears his name and repeats it.
How to dye rice
- If we do not have violet color, we will mix the blue color together with the red one until we get the color we want (think that the tone will be very dark, when you dye the rice it will be much lighter).
- We put the rice in the plastic bag (we will use one bag inside another to protect against possible breakage and leakage).
- We put the dye in the rice bag and mix with the spoon stirring with energy for a good while until the rice has been dyed evenly.
- We let it dry in a bucket for a few hours or until when the hand is introduced, it does not get dirty with the dye.
- We break the lavender leaves and mix them with the rice so that they give off aroma (if we rub them against the rice, they will smell even more)
- We hide the child's treasures or toys and leave a bag or bucket next to the child to leave the toys.
- The idea is that the child puts his hand as deeply as possible, without realizing it, he will be relaxing when he comes into contact with the rice, removing and feeling the contact with his skin.
- Once you find a toy, you have to put it in the bag or bucket that we will have left by your side.
- You can count the toys that come out or go saying their color, so you will also learn the numbers and colors!
