This Sensory Rice Snake Craft is a must-try whether you’re celebrating Lunar New Year, learning about reptiles, or just looking for a fun, hands-on craft. It’s easy, engaging, and packed with sensory fun.
With just a simple snake outline, some colorful dyed rice, and glue, kids can create a vibrant, textured masterpiece that looks and feels amazing. Plus, it’s a fantastic fine motor activity—sprinkling, pouring, and pressing rice onto the paper helps develop hand strength and coordination while giving kids a fun, hands-on way to express themselves.
Why You’ll Love This Craft
- Super simple setup – Just print, glue, and sprinkle!
- Great sensory experience – The textured rice makes this craft extra engaging for little hands.
- Perfect for Lunar New Year – The Year of the Snake comes around every 12 years, but snakes are an important symbol in many cultures!
- Encourages creativity – Kids can experiment with colors and patterns to make their snake unique.
Materials You’ll Need
- Snake outline printable (Download below!)
- Colored rice (Use a mix of bright colors or traditional Lunar New Year reds and golds. Find full recipe here)
- White school glue
- Paintbrush (to spread glue evenly)
How to Make a Textured Rice Snake Craft
- If you don’t already have dyed rice, it’s easy to make! Place uncooked rice in a ziplock bag, add a few drops of food coloring and a splash of vinegar. Shake well and spread it on a tray to dry. Use reds, yellows, greens, and blues for a Lunar New Year vibe, or let kids pick their own color mix! Find my full instructions here. You can also make colored rice using acrylic paint and white rice.
- Next, print out the snake template on a sturdy piece of cardstock or construction paper. If you don’t have a printer, you can draw a simple snake outline using a black marker!
- Use a paintbrush or glue bottle to spread glue inside the snake outline. Kids can choose to fill in sections or cover the whole snake with colorful rice.
- Time for the fun part! Sprinkle the colored rice onto the glue, pressing it down slightly so it sticks. Shake off the excess rice and let the snake dry completely.
- Add fun details around your snake such as fireworks for Lunar New Year or grass and natural habitat for the snake.
- Once dry, the textured snake makes a great decoration for Lunar New Year celebrations or a reptile-themed craft wall!
Ways to Extend the Fun
- Make a snake family – Print out different snake shapes and create a whole collection!
- Add more texture – Try mixing rice with sand or small beads for extra sensory fun.
- Try different designs – Use glue to make striped or spotted patterns on the snake before adding the rice.
Play2Learn Toddler & Preschool Programs for Curious Toddlers
There is no limit to your toddler’s energy and curiosity. That energy and curiosity although a joy can be challenging at times. Their interest in just about everything around them is what makes them great learners. One and two year olds can soak up so much just from their senses!
But as a teacher or parent that thirst for learning can be exhausting. That is why I created this toddler and preschooler program. To help you get the most out of this time with your curious toddler without having to come up with creative ways to play and interact with them.
Play2Learn for Toddlers includes 20 Units for toddlers. Each 2-week toddler unit has 20 super easy to set up and engaging activities for toddlers 18 months to 3 years.
Play2Learn Preschool which includes 20 Units for preschoolers. Each 2-week preschoolers unit has 20 unique and easy to set up and engaging activities for preschoolers 3 years to 5 years. That’s over 800 learning activities for your toddler and preschooler at your fingertips! So many ideas you and your child will never be bored again!
These toddler and preschool lesson plans and activities will definitely keep you and your toddler and preschooler busy playing and learning!
Click here for more information: Play2Learn
Book: Exciting Sensory Bins for Curious Kids
Did you know I wrote a book of sensory bins? Click here for more information Exciting Sensory Bin for Curious Kids. Or grab your copy at Amazon.
Boring afternoons are made exciting with awesome animal-based bins, like Salty Shark Bay or Yarn Farm. Pretend play bins like Birthday Cake Sensory Play or Bubble Tea Party encourage creativity and imagination. And your kids will have so much fun they won’t even know they’re getting smarter with STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and math) activities like Sink or Float Soup, Magnetic Letter Hunt or Ice Cream Scoop and Count.
Designed for toddlers 18 months and up.
Book: Super STEAM Activity Book for Kids
Learning all about science, technology, engineering, art, and math sets kids up for scholastic success―and it can be so much fun! Watch kids enjoy building STEAM skills as they color friendly fish, help water find its way to tree roots, solve math problems with mazes, and more.
Find out more and grab your copy here.
Designed for preschoolers 3 years old and up.
Book: Big Book of Riddles for Kids
Riddle me this: What’s an exciting way to practice critical thinking while having a blast? The Big Riddle Book for Kids, of course! From hilarious puns to tough brain teasers, kids can build problem-solving skills with hundreds of riddles tha. t show them how to think outside the box.
- 350 riddles for kids—Have hours of fun with riddles, puns and jokes, and math and logic puzzles that’ll get their wheels turning!
- Level up their skills—Riddles get trickier as kids progress through the book, challenging them as they get better at solving puzzles!
- Double-check their work—Kids can check their answers in the back of the book with a handy answer key.
Help children expand their minds while having fun with this puzzle book for kids!
Designed for kids ages 6 years old and up.
TV Show: Curious Crafting
I’m so excited to share my crafting TV show Curious Crafting which launched in July 2022 on TVOkids and TVOkids YouTube! Season 2 aired in August 2023! My show was also nominated in 2023 for Best Live Action Preschool Series by the Youth Media Alliance Awards of Excellence.
Curious Crafting Season 1 is also now airing in Australia on ABC! Watch it here!
Set in the ultimate crafting space, Curious Crafting is a short form pre-school age series about the joy of making crafts. I lead a rotating cast of adorable little preschoolers (including my own) making magic out of common household objects.
In each episode we transform recycled items into magical crafts like a milk carton school bus, paper bag puppet or cotton pad turtle. The crafters learn and laugh their way through each activity while demonstrating what their young imaginations can create.
Curious Crafting shares the adventure and joy of making art with takeaway lessons for creating crafts at home.
This show designed for toddlers and preschoolers 2.5 years old and up.
