Playing with rainbow coloured spaghetti is a very simple play idea that children of all ages enjoy. The cool, colourful stringy strands are almost irresistible, even to adults. By simply cooking and colouring spaghetti children are treated to a wonderful sensory experience that is hard to compare to any other and it’s amazing the different ways you can play with it too.
You might remember a number of years ago I did this spaghetti play activity with Possum (now 3.5 years). She absolutely loved it and so I was really excited to do it again, but also include Boo (10 months), who loved it probably just as much! This really is an activity that all age groups can enjoy.
Recommended age: 8 months +
(Active supervision required on all ideas shared)
So the first step is to colour the pasta, which you can find my instructions here.
Allow me to share with you a few tips
- Slightly undercook the spaghetti than over cook it. You’ll need less colouring
- Rinse pasta really well under cool water once cooked to remove all starch
- Once you’ve coloured the spaghetti, allow it to dry completely before play
I just love the vibrancy of these spaghetti strands.
Such a great way to talk and learn more about colours!
Possum, who can occasionally hesitate to engage in similar sensory type activities, loved the challenge of trying to mix up all the colourful spaghetti strands. She couldn’t get enough of it and loved burring her fingers in as much as she could!
Yes, of course spaghetti needs to be picked up and dropped down. Hahaha
Don’t forget feet during sensory play!
Before I knew it, feet were involved and squishing the strands of spaghetti. So often do we forget that feet are important in sensory exploration too. So next time you have your child engaging in a sensory related activity, get their shoes and socks off and see if they’ll dig their feet in. Wonderful!
Fine Motor Skills
Possum gave herself the challenge of tying the strands of spaghetti into knots. It was a difficult challenge but one worth attempting. You could also add some tongs or similar to help children develop their fine motor skills. Sorting the different coloured strands would make a great (and time consuming) challenge I’m sure kids would enjoy.
Making pictures
I’m disappointed I didn’t get a good picture of this for you guys….
Possum came up with the idea of making pictures with the different coloured strands of spaghetti. Of course children don’t have to stick to the colours they know things to be, however, Possum made a picture using green spaghetti for the grass, blue for the sky, yellow sun and a red house. Brilliant!
Boo (10 months) was incredibly eager to be involved in the play too. This is such a fabulous sensory activity for babies because it is quite safe for them to taste and wonderful for them to get their little fingers in and explore.
Playing with rainbow coloured spaghetti is an easy to make sensory activity for children. I also love that it suits a wide range of ages. Perfect for all children, especially babies and children with special needs.
Of course you don’t have to colour the strands of spaghetti, you might prefer it uncoloured. It still is lots of great fun. Enjoy
Would your child enjoy getting their hands into cooked spaghetti?
Great value ebooks featuring Laughing Kids Learn
Follow Kate @ LaughingKidsLearn’s board Laughing Kids Learn on Pinterest.
You might also like –
This is great thank you so much for sharing beautiful photos aswell. 🙂
Oh Madeleine, thank you so kindly for your lovely comments. I very much appreciate that.
This activity was so much fun for all of us. I hope you get a chance to make it. I really could have added so many more photos, but I had to restrain myself. LOL 🙂
This looks like so much fun! What a fun colourful activity.:)
We had such a wonderful time thanks Kat. My little girl has a huge thing for rainbows at the moment so it only seemed right to the colour the spaghetti. LOL
Such fun! So lovely to see them both playing together and what lovely pics! Thanks for sharing 🙂
It seriously warms my heart to see them play together Debs. This activity had us all laughing and having fun. 🙂
There are some wonderful ideas here however, any play activity that uses a food source should be discouraged. So many go to bed hungry, a more important lesson than playing with spaghetti.
Thank you for sharing your opinion with me Barbara. I’m always open to hearing them.
My thought are very similar to those of Kate over at Picklebums. I’ll share it here for you to look at.
Kindest. https://picklebums.com/play-with-your-food-or-not-my-thoughts-on-food-in-play/
This looks like it will be fun. Being on a budget not getting paid during quarantine this will be a reasonable way to teach a lesson.