Brightly Colored Pasta

Uncooked pasta is a staple when it comes to crafting with kids – it can be glued onto cardboard or poster paper to create pictures or strung to make jewelry. Pasta can also be used to teach counting, sorting, matching, and patterning activities. If you’re tired of using the same old uncooked macaroni noodles while crafting with your kids, you can try dying different types of pasta noodles. It’s easy and your kids will be visually attracted by the intensity of the colors.

Supplies

You only need three simple ingredients to make colored pasta – white vinegar, pasta, and food coloring. You might happen to have all of these around the house already. Try doing a big batch of pasta all at once. You can combine different types of pasta, including macaroni, penne, shells, fusilli, cavatappi, ditalini, and farafalle and farfalline for added variety. In terms of supplies, you should have some Ziploc bags, a measuring cup, and wax paper on hand.

brightly colored pasta1How To

The first step is to add one teaspoon of white vinegar to a Ziploc bag. The white vinegar is an essential ingredient if you want to get a strong color. Add twenty or so drops of food coloring to the same bag. Do the same for each different color you would like to make. Add one half a cup of pasta to each different bag. The next step is to shake the bags until the color is distributed throughout. Your kids might want to help out with this step. Once you’ve shaken all of the colors, let the bags rest for approximately ten minutes before opening them and pouring them out onto the wax paper to dry. You should let the noodles dry for several hours – at least three or four – before allowing your kids to play with them.

Fun Ideas

Pasta necklaces with penne on a string or yarn are a crafting classic – but dying the pasta makes the necklaces more attractive than ever before. Using dyed penne pasta, make a sewing needle using rope and a section of a plastic drinking straw. The straw part should be cut longer than one piece of penne pasta so that your child can string on the pieces by threading the needle through the penne. Make a slit at the end of the straw to hold the yarn or string in place. Remember to help your children make their necklaces by tying something onto the end so the penne beads don’t slip off. When they have finished adding beads, tie both ends of the necklace together in a knot. Ensure that the necklace is big enough to fit over their head so that it doesn’t need to be tied and untied each time your kids want to put it on.

brightly colored pasta2Summary

Brightly colored pasta noodles are a welcome addition to any craft kit. The colors make them appealing to kids and will keep them busy for hours. They can also be used to help teach valuable skills such as counting, matching, and patterning. Get your kids to help you make them and you can turn dying the pasta into an afternoon-long activity.