It's ooey, it's gooey and it's PERFECT for Halloween! Spaghetti is a great sensory material! Just add food coloring and mix in some seasonal items and your kids will LOVE it!
How to make colored pasta: cook the pasta, put in plastic a bag and shake with some food coloring. If the color is not coming out even, add a tablespoon or two of water. If you are worried about the dye coming off on your fingers, simply add a tablespoon of vinegar!
For our Halloween sensory tray I made orange and black spaghetti. Then layered the spaghetti with different halloween themed items including plastic pumpkins, spiders, bugs, and googly eyes. After the tray was finished I placed a few sensory bin tools around the edges. Simple and fun!
I know this is an especially sensitive time to be playing with food and I have spent a lot of time thinking about the pros and cons of posting an activity like this. I like playing with things like beans and spaghetti because they are 100% biodegradable. I always start with food that is expired, then move to things like left overs spaghetti that I'm about to throw out, and finally move to brand new packages. Once we are done with one activity (which always lasts a few days) I try to transform it into at least one other activity. For example, letting her cut the spaghetti with safety scissors and finally freezing the spaghetti into ice cubes. One package of spaghetti can get stretched really far in terms of learning.
If playing with food makes you uncomfortable, you can always donate a package of spaghetti to a local food bank for every package you play with! Then it's a win, win!
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