On Saturday when I was baking up a storm, I was also entertaining Ridley who can run circles around me all day long. Where do two year olds get all their energy?? 
Ridley loves “doing dishes” or playing in the water, so I thought he might enjoy playing with some rice.
I gathered a pan, cups, measuring cups and plastic lids along with a bag of rice.
I’ve never seen Ridley stay in one place for such a long time. He entertained himself by moving the rice around, pouring, spilling, transferring, pouring over and over again.
I love his concentration. Such a sweet little man.
What you don’t see in these pictures…is when he took a handful and threw it on the floor. I wasn’t upset because, I’m sure I probably would’ve done the same thing when I was two as well.
Sweeping up rice is super easy too.
Ridley loved playing with rice and I’m sure that we will do this again soon!
What’s your kids’ favorite frugal inside toddler activity?
Linked to: Works For Me Wednesday and Frugal Friday
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My 4, 5, and 7 year olds played with rice today. We call it the Sensory Bucket. They played with it for over an hour.
Now that you mention your two year old enjoyed it (with minimal mess), I’m considering letting my 21-month old twin boys try it tomorrow. You’re right, rice sweeps up easy!
We do this with beans. I think it might be a little easier to clean up than rice. My daughter’s speech therapist had one of those plastic turtle sand boxes filled with bean. It was her favorite part of therapy and help her more than anything!
What a wonderful idea. My grandaughter is 22 months old and that would be a great play time idea.
Beans and rice are great to put inside various containers as well to see how the sounds changes. This can also occupy kids for hours as they search for different things to put the rice/beans inside of. Challenge them to see how creative they can get as well as compare what is the loudest and quietest.
I keep meaning to do this with my boys…every time I open the rice bucket they come running and try their hardest to get their little hands in there to run their fingers through the rice.
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My kids loved playing with rice as preschoolers – their favorite thing was to use the little dumptrucks, etc to push it around. Now they are 6 and 8 and just asked to play with rice over the weekend!
I’ve done this with beans as well! Katie loves it!
Mama Chocolate´s last [type] ..Wordless Wednesday – Victoria has Two Expressions
Awww…too cute!! Smart idea…and bet he had a blast! =)
~Hannah
It would be great for us, if only my 2 year old wouldn’t eat it. She eats everything. I’d probably be more inclined to use beans. Maybe after lunch one I’ll try
Beans are really fun and good sensory activity for toddlers as well. You can start doing this pretty young. Also, you can hide things in the beans/rice and have them find them, categorize them by color, etc. SO much you can do with toddlers. Enjoy the fun!
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A creative idea.I will try on doing with my child.Thanks fo your sharing
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We do this! I have 2 bins, one is filled with oatmeal and rice and the other is filled with beans. My kids love to play in these. We add hotwheel cars, construction trucks, spoons, cups, the possibilities are endless.
Learning the Frugal Life´s last [type] ..Coupon Deals
This is also something we do with out 2 and 4 year olds. Each has their own beans and rice bucket. I just want to warn anyone with small children that beans can be a potential choking hazard, so please, please keep that in mind.
In Christ, Anna
He’s two!? I feel like my two and half year old would take the bucket of rice dump it over his head, pull on his pull ups dump it down “there”, and drive his trucks through any rice that landed on the floor.
{jealous} !!!
Pamela @ pbjstories.blogspot.com
My kids still love playing in rice and they are almost 5 and 6. Another fun one to try is beans. We keep a plastic bin of each and they swap back and forth.
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Both my girls (4 and 7) love being in the kitchen. They are now big into “making” mac and cheese. They make me proud when I see them stirring and asking Mom what that and why do you use that
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Just wanted to let you know I use this in my classroom with children with special needs, 3-4 yr. olds. They love it and I hide things in the rice/beans and they look for it and can do all kinds of educational things with the sorting if you’d like. An easy clean up is taking a cheap plastic table cloth and setting the container on it and when the kids are done, I just pick it up, fold it to make a funnel and pour the ingredients back into the container!! Clean as can be.