This pasta rescue game is a great fine motor skills practice activity for children.
Thanks to Sarah, from Victoria, BC, Canada, who sent in this great pasta play idea. Let’s take a look at it…
What did you do?
We wrapped elastics around large pasta in both long and short directions.
Children can practice fine motor skills and finger strengthening by removing elastics from the pasta.
Further learning opportunities:
If you want to expand the learning, use colourful elastics and put one color going both directions on two different types of pasta.
Ask questions like:
How many pastas are wrapped in blue?
How many pastas are shell shaped?
How many pastas are wrapped the same way?
Can you find two shell shaped pastas wrapped the same way?
Further expansion of learning opportunities can come when categorizing after the elastic is removed:
-group color elastics together
-put elastics in rainbow order
-group pastas in like category
-make shapes or numbers or letters out of the pasta
How did the activity go?
I love that it’s a quick and easy set up/clean up for me, and a long (in toddler time!) activity for my kiddo! I like that it can be adapted to her mood and attention span, and be done indoors or outside. Bonus that there’s sneaky math play involved!
Do you have any other projects planned?
I’m planning something for my youngest, my one year old car loving son. I want to take the “smooth road” song and turn it into an interactive play where he can move his toy cars over/through different sensory surfaces like rocks, and shaving foam. And I’ll adapt the song as he goes to each part of the “road”. I’m so excited!
Tell the Housebound With Kids community a bit about yourself…
Hello, I’m Sarah. I’m a wife to Jordan, and we have a three year old daughter, Avaya, and a one year old son, Jonas. We live on the beautiful west coast of Vancouver Island, Canada, just blocks from the Sidney Waterfront.
When I’m not refilling the snacks, I’m planning plays for fun. It’s truly become my hobby.
I work full time as a Children’s Pastor, and love encouraging parents in this journey we’re on together.
@davidson.and.daughter
Do you have any tips for other parents?
Lots and lots of grace! This is not a competition- no one is being graded on what was accomplished. It’s easy to get super serious, so remember to be silly with your kids!
What are your family’s favourite board game(s)/card game(s)?
Currently Candyland is a favourite of the three year old.
I play a lot of Crib, Five Crowns, and Backgammon with my parents.
I also love Dutch blitz but no one will play with me anymore.
What are your children’s favourite books?
My three year old girl is loving look and find books that include her favourite character.
My one year old son is enjoying the Usborne “That’s not my…” series.
What toys would you recommend to other parents?
Open ended materials!
I love Grapat and Grimms but the price point isn’t in our reality, so I bought things like reusable ice cubes, wooden cubes, and a splatter of other materials from our local dollar store to use instead. They have access to these toys and it’s so fun to see them used for a variety of things from soups to houses and everything in between! Every day there’s a new story.
Has this website and community helped you?
This is an amazing resource for parents! It really shows we are all in this together.
To view other activities you can click here.
