Awhile back, this post ran over on The Foster Family Blog as a guest post. Thank you, Jennifer, for letting me share this with your readers! I thought I’d repost it here, now, so that its here with the rest of my toddler activity bag posts. Its a fun one!
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When my twins were newborns, I found having lots of activities handy for my just turned 2 year old was critical to having any sort of peace and stability in our day. I was breastfeeding or holding sleeping babies literally around the clock, and Emma was such a good sport about it all, I can’t believe it!
I soon found channeling the ex-kindergarten teacher in me was a sanity saver. Before I sat down with the babies for a long session, I would set Emma up with 3-4 activities (in school we sometimes called these “centers”) plus a snack, so she could move from thing to thing as she got bored. One thing that really worked great for us (and still do!) were Toddler Activity Bags — gallon ziplock bags filled with a self contained, quiet activity. I’m going to share one of those here with you today, and feel free to check out my other activity bag posts listed at the bottom of my “top posts” page.
Dyed Pasta is a great base for two fun activities that are quite popular around here — pasta sorting, and pasta necklace beading. Last week I set about trying it myself, and it was a success! I really wanted to get nice bright colors, and I did, woo hoo!
Here is what you need for the dyeing:
- pasta
- rubbing alcohol
- food coloring
- ziplock bags (or glass jars?)
- pipe cleaners (for needles)
- very thin ribbon for threading onto (I used a ribbon “yarn” that was sold to knit with).
- washers or key rings (to keep the pasta on the ribbon, and to use as a clasp on the necklaces)
- clear plastic cups for sorting into
The first step is buying the pasta. For sorting, the goal is fun, interesting shapes. Twists or spirals, cones shapes, bow ties, or anything cool looking all are great! For beading, you need pasta that has a fairly wide hole to fit over the needle (more on this later) and that’s not bent too much. I found 3-4 tubular pastas that worked well for this one, including long and short cut penne pasta and large “wagon wheels”. I then pulled out 5 ziplock bags and put a mix of all the different pasta shapes in each bag (I was working in bulk here so I filled gallon bags half full — you could do much smaller amounts for just your family). I have seen this done in jars as well.
Into the bags goes the rubbing alcohol. I didn’t cover the pasta completely, but it was maybe up halfway or a little more (I used 3 big bottles between the 5 bags). Next in, food coloring! I did red, yellow, green and blue, plus a combo of purple and pink (which ended up purple) from that neon set. I put in a lot — probably several tablespoons each (the whole small bottle) but again, with smaller quantities of pasta you could cut this down some. I don’t think the ratios here are critical — just make sure everything gets wet and there’s lots of color to make it bright!
Next, you seal ‘em up, and wait. And shake them around a little, turn them over, and wait. Shake shake, jiggle jiggle, flip. And wait. I kept them in the color solution for about 2.5 hours.
Next, I cut the corner of the bag off to drain, then poured them onto newspaper lined trays to dry. Warning — this can stink up the room like rubbing alcohol! I then left them to dry in the garage overnight, which kept the smell away. In the morning, they were dry, stink free, and ready for sorting. Hooray! I sorted them back out into two separate bags — the ones with big holes for beading, everything else for sorting.
Now, for the needles. To make these, you cut a pipe cleaner into thirds or so, and tie it to a length of ribbon long enough to fit around your child’s head. Twist it back up onto itself, and tie the ribbon on with a knot (in the photo below, the orange needle is tied on but needs to be twisted still. The blue one is all done). At the end of the ribbon, tie a washer. This works to keep the pasta on, and also as a clasp. When you child is done beading, just wrap the pipe cleaner “needle” around the washer to temporarily tie it together. Just unwind and reuse next time!
And for the sorting activity, I used 6 or so clear plastic cups, with numbers and dots written on them for counting practice. The kids can sort by shape or color, count pasta into the cups, or just dump and pour, dump and pour! Muffin tins or egg cartons also work great for sorting into. With older kids you can also practice fine motor skills by transferring noodles from cup to cup with tweezers or tongs. If you get tired of sorting or beading, glue them on some cardboard or heavy paper for a fun project! I highly recommend using trays or rimmed cookie sheets for both pasta activities to keep the pasta somewhat contained (ha ha ha).
Happy noodling!
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I read this when you posted on The Foster Family blog but I forgot about it. Thanks for sharing again-I’m going to do this with my two boys!
I just finished dyeing three (small) batches of pasta this morning…thanks for the recipe, technique and the suggestion to use lots of food coloring!! Ours are drying right now and I cannot wait for the kiddos to play with the finished product!
Sarah M — yay, so glad it worked well for you! Hope they have fun! I find there is a certain amount of time my girls can play with it creatively before they start to get bored and start crunching them up or dumping them on the floor.
Sarah — Thats cool you saw it over there, too! You should give it a try — its fun!
Thanks for the recipe! We dyed big batches of pasta as you described for an activity bag exchange and it worked great. Lacing necklaces, here we come!
Hello,
I love this idea and will be doing this for girl scouts..
I have a daisy troop and think they will love this.
I did have a question for you though..
The food tray you have in the picture.. Where did you get that..
I have been trying to find some myself and that is exactly what i am looking for..
Any into would be so so helpful..
thanks so much
Amy
Thanks Amy! Have fun with it!!!
I got the trays before I had kids from Restoration Hardware. I don’t think they carry them anymore though! If you google “divided cafeteria tray” some come up. Other good things for sorting into are desk drawer-type organizers, ice cube trays (for small things) and those plastic containers apples come in at costco (there is a round hole for each apple), you can cut the tray in two). I also use some big trays from IKEA a lot for kid projects, though they are not divided.
Good luck!
Egg cartons are great to use for the sorting, if you do not want to invest in a craft tray.
Hello. I made up a batch of this today and it is currently drying in bathroom, with the vent on and the windows open! I was thinking about how I could put them to use tomorrow and then it dawned on me that my daughter (3yrs) recently started sneaking bites of uncooked pasta while I’m preparing dinner. I’m a bit concerned about her sneaking bites of these when I’m not looking. Should I be or does most of the rubbing alcohol evaporate? Thanks
I can’t say for sure about the alcohol, Jessica, but I would think most of it will evaporate. Still would definitely drill it in her head that is not food and that it could make her sick, etc, and keep an eye on her while using it for awhile! Maybe have an approved snack nearby too just to be sure it’s not too tempting. Once she tries eating it I think she would see it is not as good as it looks. My girls have never tried eating it, though when they were young toddlers they would bite on it/feel it with their mouths without thinking sometimes.
Where did you find the wagon wheels and other interesting shapes?
[...] craft stick. Great for word recognition!Britney (mom to a 1 1/2 year old girl) made this Dyed Pasta activity. You can find the recipe for adding brilliant colors to noodles at Intrepid Murmurings. [...]
I am living in Scotland and have not heard of ‘ rubbing alcohol’!What is rubbing alcohol and do you know what the alternative name for it is in the UK ?Can you omit this ingredient?Where might I find it or what is it normally used for ?Thanks !!Love your ideas !!
Hi Karen! I think rubbing alcohol (isopropyl alcohol) is called “surgical spirit” in the UK? Is that right? Here is the wikipedia info about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubbing_alcohol I think it is fairly important in this recipe to make the pasta so bright!
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How many cups did this make for you? I’m needing to make 4 colors each for 29 people. Is this enough? I need 14 cups of pasta…if India the math right! Thank you!
I have found that the plastic insides of cookie products (or other products that need protecting when transporting from manufacturer to store to consumer)are great for a sorting containers.
Thank Youuuu , this safe my life for my senior project!’ It worked just perfect (:
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