This Homemade Colored Rock Salt is a ton of fun for an array of different activities! This fun play recipe has been keeping us busy all week and is great for all kinds of sensory play and art activities!
While working on our Ocean Unit I found these gorgeous sea salt star fish mosaics. We have never played around with dyed salt before, but the photos were so beautiful I just HAD to give it a try!
Miss Livia took one look at the vibrant colors and determined right then and there that they were most definitely sparkly princess gems…where as Mr. Q didn’t hesitate for a second to grab some cups and scoops to dump, pour, and put his trucks to work in the gem mines. We have had a ton of fun with these and I know your kids will too!
Materials Needed for Homemade Colored Rock Salt:
- Ice Cream Salt – also known as rock salt
- Liquid Water Colors
- Zip Lock Bags
That’s it! One almost-full box of ice cream salt yielded plenty of sparkly goodness.
Directions for Homemade Colored Rock Salt:
Making Rainbow Crystals is very similar to making Dyed Pasta and Colored Rice. The one thing that I love about this recipe though is that in using liquid watercolors the crystals don’t have the smell of either vinegar or rubbing alcohol!
To start you add a couple scoops of ice cream salt to a zip lock baggie.
Add a glob of liquid watercolors. Depending on the consistency (ours is thicker than normal) add water slowly.
Let kiddos shake the bags vigorously until the rock salt is well coated. Let the salt soak for a couple of minutes (5-10) and then pour out on to a flat sheet to dry.
Once dry play!
Do you add alcohol to the rock salt and liquid watercolor?
I did not 🙂 rock salt is pretty absorbent
After the salt is dry, does the color come off on your hands when you play with it?