Hello friends,
I didn't post for a while because our relatives from Canada were visiting and for three weeks, whe spend some really good quality time together! And that's so beautiful you know? We were so blessed that we had the opportunity to create memories and chat, take long walks, cooking together and do all kind of family things!
Anyways, in this post I'll write about Pasta Threading Activity with/for toddlers! My baby boy is soon THREE! Whooo, TIME PLEASE SLOW DOWN! I just see myself with my baby holding him in my arms, scared and unsecured of this 'mama life'. But here we are now! I start doing activities with Caleb when he was 1y and 3mo and it's been already such a "prosperous" journey!
Pasta threading with young children is such a great activity, did you know that!? It really helps developing children’s fine motor skills – the small muscles in their hands.
This activity can be a big challenge for the little ones and they will need your support, guidance and encouragement for achieve this task.
Why do this activity?
Threading is a great activity to help children develop fine motor skills essential for being able to draw, write, do up buttons, tie shoelaces, open lunch boxes and more.
Threading also helps to develop eye-hand coordination and concentration skills.
Children learn mathematical concepts such as counting and sequencing
Children learn language skills as they name colours. [source here]
As you can see down below, we did this activity several times, at different age.
First time we try this, my son was 1 year and 3 months. I chose to use non colored pasta because I wanted him to focus on JUST stacking those penne pastas. You can start with colored pastas as well if you think it's best, but I think it's important to keep it simple especially if your kid is just at the begining of learning activities. They can get confused very easily and it's no use if they are too stimulated.
After learning many colours through play, I thought this would make a good colour reinforcement play for Caleb so we use our colored pasta. The bright colours made the invitation to thread and sort so inviting for my little one that he couldn’t wait to dig into while I was setting it up back then.
For this activity you need:
- penne pastas
- barbeque sticks or straws
- one piece of cardboard or playdough( to fix the barbeque sticks)
I think its easier to use playdough. You can color your pastas with acrylic colors, food coloring or just carioca. Here's a link to our DIY Rainbow Colored Pasta.
Practice makes perfect. I loved his focus and concentration in trying out this pasta colour sort and threading activity. I did a round of demonstration first then left my little toddler to work the rest.
Don't forget toddlers have so little patience and if they're able to thread a couple of pasta in the right colour order and they're not giving up despite being so soo little and "newbies", WELL, that's something! 👏🏻
Also, this is something similar we've tried. I made some little holes into the orange peel and my toddler had to put it on those barbeque sticks. This activity wasn't succesfully done because it was to hard for him to put them in the right place. I mean, that orange peel wasn't the best option for this. Instead, he enjoyed grabbing those orange pieces and put them in his mouth.
So, what do you think? Did you already try this easy activity with your children? If not, maybe you would! It's really fun for the little ones!
Take care and have fun!
And don't forget to let me know if you try this at home! I would love to know how it worked for you!
Love, Missdeli