What do you do when your pantry is full of pasta and you still have coupons to get more pasta for 30 cents a box? You dye it!
-Place pasta in a plastic bag
-Pour a few tablespoons of rubbing alcohol into the bag (I didn’t measure…neither should you!)
-Pour your pasta onto a plate with a paper towel and let it dry!
-If your little one becomes impatient, place it outside to speed up the drying time….
Now you have colored pasta for lots of activities….
- Sorting by colors
- Sorting shapes of pasta (bowties, corkscrews, penne, etc.)
- Counting Pasta
- Making Patterns
- Pasta Art
- “Which one doesn’t belong?” (3 of the same, 1 different)
Just a side note: Jonah (2 years old) immediately started sorting without much guidance from Mommy! He sorted by colors (I only gave him 2 colors to start with) and he sorted by shape (I gave him all the same color and he sorted “butterflies” and “horns”…he even named the pasta!)
I used dyed pasta in my kindergarten class all the time for cheap manipulatives for math skills/games. The possibilities are endless!
Now go dye pasta, your kids will think you’re even more awesome than you already are…
Love this idea! Thank you for showing us how to do it!
Carrie
P.S. Congrats on "moving on up" too!
Love this idea!!
At first glance I thought this was a craft for making a stoplight. Now I see that it's awesome colored pasta – and in such vibrant colors, too!
Would the same work for rice???
Angela
nscrofan at rogers dot com
Yes! This would work for rice! A big tub of rainbow rice would be so much fun to play in!