Stringing Penne Pasta

Sweet Pea is 24 months old.

From: I think I have seen this in several places, but the most recent was an article at wonderbrains.com.  That article even described how you could dye the pasta first, but we didn’t mess with that this time.

Materials:

• A spool ofblack gimp (plastic craft lace) from Micheal’s.
• An old bag of penne pasta my mom had on hand.
• A sturdy bowl

Procedure:

• Put 5 or 10 pieces of pasta in the metal bowl.
• Cut off a piece of gimp about 2 feet long.
• Tie one of the pieces of penne to the bottom of the gimp so the pasta won’t fall off the end when your tot strings it.

• Sit next to your tot and carefully hold a couple inches of the loose end of the gimp so that it sticks straight out horizontally.
• While your tot watches, carefully slide a piece of pasta onto the gimp.  Move the pasta all the way down the gimp to until it bumps into the tied piece.
• Repeat with another couple pieces of pasta before handing the gimp over to your tot.

Observations: Sweet Pea had a more difficult time with this at first than I expected.  It requires a lot of fine motor control for a toddler.  I had to help with the stringing quite a few times, but eventually Sweet Pea got the idea and was able to do it on her own.  It took a lot of concentration for her to string the pasta without help from me, but she seemed to like doing it pretty well.  You have to make sure that your tot pushes the pasta all the way down to the end of the gimp or the pasta will easily fall back off of the end.

Notes from the Trenches: Again, this seems like a simple skill, but Sweet Pea had trouble with it.  I suggest demonstrating very slowly before just giving the gimp and pasta to your toddler or they might end up really frustrated.  Rigatoni was too large and broke easily.  I thought the penne was a better size for stringing. Also, apparently dogs will eat raw pasta.  🙂  Shortly after we did this activity, we found the dogs trying to choke down wet, half-chewed pieces of pasta under the kitchen table.

Rating: 3 Stars  (Fun, Easy, Independent – after some initial help) *