We participated in a challenge from Sarah over at Little Bins for Little Hands. The challenge was to give your child a bin of rice, only rice, and allow them to play with it however they like. They could bring toys to it as they wished, but we weren't allowed to push them in any direction. Basically we were to leave it as child-led as possible. This was no problem with my opinionated bunch to be sure! They were happy to provide their own toys and stories!
I provided each of my kids with their own bin filled with plain white rice. At first they enjoyed scooping it with their hands and letting it flow out of them.
After a few minutes they ran off to find some other toys to add. Eli returned with cars; while the girls came back with ponies. I wasn't surprised by either choice of course!
After playing alone for a while they all decided to play together with stuffed bears. The girls had a couple stories going on about the bears being buried in snow; while Eli was feeding his bears the rice.
....a floor covered in rice! Luckily for me the older two also know how to work brooms! It is amazing to me how much play they can get out of something so simple. They were playing at least an hour and requested to do it again while we were cleaning up!
Like I said earlier this challenge came from the lovely Sarah over at Little Bins for Little Hands, and several other bloggers accepted the challenge as well! Be sure to stop by and see what their little ones did with something as simple as a bin of rice!