Spaghetti fun

At nursery we have lots fun with spaghetti… You can colour it or not -  its lovely to get your hands in to the slimy wormy spaghetti once its cooled.

Try snipping it with scissors, or picking it up with tongs. Try to move your spaghetti from one container to another. You can keep your spaghetti for a few days, and enjoy the slimy wormy mess. 

Start by cooking your spaghetti as normal. Drain it, rinse  it with cold water, add 1tbsp of vegetable oil and mix that in. This helps the spaghetti stay non-sticky and allows the food colouring to stick to it better. When it’s cool, add your choice of food colouring if you like and mix in well until all of the spaghetti is covered.

This can be played with straight away or you can cover it with cling film and keep in the fridge until you would like your children to play with it. Add bowls, spoons and any plastic animals to create even more interest  to playtime. Depending on what has been added to the spaghetti, you could cover it up and use it again within a couple of days for more fun!

Add water if the worms become too dry or sticky

This spaghetti play is great for learning...

• Lots of squeezing, squishing and manipulating fun exploring the textures of the wet, slimy spaghetti worms.
• Sensory play is a great opportunity for children to explore language and use descriptive words. Words to describe what they are experiencing, their senses and what they are feeling; slippery, slimy, soft, squishy and sticky.
• Problem solving and overcoming challenges.
• Sensory play encourages children to manipulate and mould materials, building up their fine motor skills and coordination.
• Sensory play is unstructured, open-ended, not product-oriented; it is the purest sense of exploratory learning.
• Self-esteem: sensory play offers children the opportunity for self-expression because there is no right answer and children feel safe to change or experiment with what they are doing.
• Language development – experimenting with language and descriptive words. 
• Encourages imagination and creative play.