Rainbow is something that can brighten everyone’s day. And when stuck indoors, we could all use some brightening up. Making Rainbow Colored rice is a great activity that will surely put a smile on children’s faces. So grab some rice and some food coloring, and let’s create our own rainbow.

Article Contents

1. How does the Rainbow Form – Science behind the rainbow
2. The symbolism of the Rainbow
3. Materials needed for Colored Rice
4. Instructions on making the Colored Rice
5. What will you develop and learn by making Rainbow Rice Activity

How does the Rainbow Form – Science behind the rainbow

Before we say how the rainbow forms, we should ask ourselves what rainbow actually is. Is it an illusion? Or an object that we can grasp?

The rainbow is a phenomenon that appears in the sky when the right conditions are met – when there is sun and the rain at the same time. It is a multi-colored, arc-shaped phenomenon that is created by reflection, refraction, and dispersion of light while it passes through the water droplets in the air. The light from the sun bounces off the raindrops and splits into rainbow stripes.

The most common type of rainbow is when the ray of sunlight passes through the rain droplet. As they pass through the droplets, they change directions through the process of reflection and refraction. We see different colors because of refraction, phenomena that some also call “bending of light waves”.  When the light wave enters the water droplet, they reflect back instead of passing fully through the water. Through that process, the light is separated inside the water and different colors are bent in different directions. That is why refracted, or bent light appears in separate colors to our eye.

We can perceive the rainbow to be close, or far, but actually, the rainbow is not located in any specific place. How we perceive it, depends on our position in regard to the direction of light. We can see the rainbow only when the sun is behind us.
So to answer the question from the beginning. The rainbow is an optical illusion and if we try to move closer to it, it will appear like it is moving further away from us.

The symbolism of the Rainbow

Due to it’s rare and mystical appearance, no wonder the rainbow appears in many mythologies and legends throughout a large number of cultures. We will mention some of the most popular symbolism from different cultures since there are too many of them to cover in this article.

One of the most popular symbolism of the rainbow is the bridge. In Norse legends, the rainbow is the bridge, Bifrost that is used to reach Asgard, home of the Gods for those who were good or virtuous. In ancient Japan, it was believed the rainbow is a bridge our ancestors took to descend on the planet.

In some cultures, it represents the archer’s bow, usually owned by some higher divine being. In Hindu mythology, Indra, the god of thunder and war was using a rainbow bow to shoot arrows of lightning. In Arabian mythology, the weather god Quzaḥ used a rainbow bow as his weapon.

And then we have widely known legends that were modernized and made into popular stories. Like the Bulgarian legend that says if we walk beneath the rainbow, we will change the gender. Also, the Ireland legend that says we can find a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow guarded by a Leprechaun.

There is also a connection between Christianity and Native American prophecy about The Whirling Rainbow. It says that one day, people of all races, beliefs, and color will put aside all their differences and live in peace and harmony. All people will join hands in unification and all living things will flourish on the face of the Earth. The great spiritual Teachers who walked the Earth before will return and spread the truths of the Whirling Rainbow, sharing their power and understanding with all. The whole human race will be called The people and there will be no more hunger, sickness, and wars.

Now that we went through the science and legends about the Rainbow, let’s get to creating our own Rainbow Rice. We suggest you check out the video at the beginning of the article or continue to read for step by step explanation on how to make this homemade activity.

Materials needed for Colored Rice

This is a simple Colored Rice kitchen activity and we don’t need many materials. All we need is:

• Rice. One kilogram of rice is recommended, especially if we want to create enough colored rice for a bigger rainbow.
• Some vinegar. One teaspoon per batch is enough so 1 deciliter of vinegar will be more than sufficient. It makes the color spread more easily and better stick to our rice.
• Food colors. You can try and experiment with different colors, not just food colors. But if your toddler is prone to putting things in mouth, we recommend sticking to the food colors. Red, Yellow and Blue color is enough since we can mix all other colors using those three.
• Spoon. We will need it for adding vinegar.
• Bowl with a lid. We will need it to be able to shake our rice and color mixture so the color spreads evenly across all rice. You can use a plastic bag as well.
• Paper or some other containers. Our colored rice needs to dry for a couple of minutes so it’s good to have some way to deposit it for drying.
• Plastic Bin. This is optional but recommended to contain the rice from spreading all over the house. Also, it’s excellent for creating colored rice sensory bins and countless hours of sensory exploration.

Instructions on making the Colored Rice

• Add a cup of rice into the bowl. Around 150 to 200 grams will be enough per batch if we plan to use 1 kg of rice to create all the rainbow colors.
• Add one teaspoon of vinegar into the rice. Classical kitchen vinegar, that you can find in any grocery store is good.
• Now add the food colors or colors of your choice. 10 to 20 drops of food color will be enough. The number of drops will define how intense the final color of the rice will be. So you can add a fewer number of drops for softer color or more drops for more intensive color.
• Close the lid and shake the bowl vigorously for a couple of seconds. If you’re not satisfied with the color, you can add more drops and shake the bowl some more.

• When you’re satisfied with the color, spread the rice on the peace of paper and leave it to dry for around 15 minutes. If you put it on the sun, it will be dry in 5 minutes.
• Repeat the process for each color you want to add on the rice. Remember that you can mix colors so you are not limited to only those you have. For example, red + yellow will give orange. Blue + red will give purple. You can experiment here and see what kind of colors you can get!
• When all rice is dry, add different colored rice next to each other to form a rainbow or other amazing images.
• You can add the rice to the plastic bin and create new activities. For example, hide some toy in the rice and let the little one find it. It can also serve as a great replacement for the sandbox. This is an excellent activity for sensory development that activates the full spectrum of child sensations.

What will you develop and learn by making Rainbow Rice Activity

• Sensomotoric development by using the rice to create a sensory bin where the child can freely explore a plethora of sensory stimuli.
• Learn about different colors and how we can create new colors by combining the colors we have.
• Scientific processes that create natural phenomena like a rainbow.
• Oculomotor coordination when playing with the rice we made.
• Chemistry processes that occur while we conduct kitchen activities and experiments like these.

We hope you will enjoy making the colored rice and playing with it as much as we did. And if you’re searching for more interesting kitchen activities with colors to boost your STEM skills, check out how to make sensory play colors. If you want to dig even deeper into chemistry processes, check out the milk polarity experiment and how to make a lava lamp. And finally, we recommend trying the dancing grain experiment for some fun visual activity.

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