Pasta Craft

Pasta Craft

Pasta is a great resource for entertaining the kiddies as there are many uses and variations - endless really. So this month I have put together a few ideas for you to try but remember, you are only as limited as your imagination so let loose and have some fun. All of these activities can be adapted to suit your age group.

Threading

Tubular pasta is great for threading, allowing children to make necklaces, bracelets or just pretties to hand in their room. Mix it up with some straws cut into pieces, bottle tops with holes punched in, patty pans, strips of paper and so on.If you would like to have some more colour, the pasta can be dyed or painted prior to threading. Wool, string or thick thread are best to use, with plastic needles available from variety stores (Big W, KMart) or craft stores. If you can't find these, large, blunt needles can be used or instead of needles, wrap from sticky tape around the end of your threading material.Remember to tie something to the bottom end to prevent all the bits from sliding off and for small children, make sure the holes are large to ease frustration.

3D Art

You will need some sturdy cardboard, variety of pasta, PVA glue, old jar lid or scrap paper, cotton buds. Don't forget to lay down an old tablecloth or some newspaper before starting. Lay your pasta out on a tray or in a bowl. Put some PVA glue into the jar lid or on the scrap paper. Children use the cotton bud to dip into the glue and then put there glue on the cardboard where they want to stick the pasta on. Get the children to put the pasta onto the glue and leave to dry.

Variations:

• The pasta picture can be painted when it is dry with either poster paints - either coloured or silver, gold or white look effective.

• The pasta can be dyed or painted prior to pasting onto the card.

• Additional items can be added to paste onto your picture - twigs, rice, lentils, coloured paper, patty pans, the list goes on.

• Rather than a flat piece of cardboard as the base, you could try a large flat rock, piece of wood, bark, boxes, and so on.

Wet Pasta

This is a great sensory activity for young children. Cook up some pasta as per instructions. Cool and place into a large tray or tub for children to explore.

Variations:

• Add some food colour to the water while the pasta is cooking.

• Use natural coloured cooked pasta to paste a picture as above. This allows the children more expression as they can bend the pasta into the shapes they would like - especially effective with long, thin pasta.