Dyed Pasta Friendship Bracelets are awesome for February! Choose your favorite colors to dye the pasta and boost your little one’s fine motor skills through this creative process! Threading is a great way to introduce bigger concepts such as colors, patterns, counting, and shapes to your little ones. Start early and see how much fun you can have have together! This activity is also great for the classroom because it is cost efficient and easy to set up multiple stations. It can be used again and again. Win, win, win!
Materials Needed:
- white vinegar
- food coloring
- pasta (as many shapes as you like, remember the bigger the better!)
- wax paper
- ziplock bags
- masking tape
- twine
- really large beads for the end of the string
Step 1: Pour 1 teaspoon of vinegar into a ziplock bag, then add 20 drops of food coloring. It seems like a lot of food coloring, but the more you add, the more fully covered your pasta becomes.
Step 2: Add your pasta! Add 1/2 – 3/4 cup of pasta to your bag and shake!
Step 3: Let your bags sit for 10 minutes, then shake them again. Leave them to sit for another 10 minutes, then pour the pasta out onto wax paper and let dry. I’ve seen recipes that say to let the pasta sit overnight to dry, but we set our pasta outside and it was dry after 2 hours.
Step 4: While the pasta is drying, create your strings! We used twine and 1 big plastic bead for each end. On the opposite end, use masking tape to create an easy needle that your little ones can use to thread!
Step 5: Get threading! Make whatever you like! For February, we thought this was an awesome time to make friendship bracelets, but you can use this activity at any time during the year! Experiment with patterns, colors, and build fine motor skills!
Check out the dyed pasta!
Did you like making dyed pasta friendship bracelets? Make sure to check out ice painting, another great activity to build fine motor skills, but with a looser structure.
