Spaghetti Sensory Bin

This was by far one of the best activities I have done with LB. It is a must do! I got the idea for it here and here. In both cases, they did more than just spaghetti. One of the sites suggested letting the kids paint the spaghetti when they got bored and the other one added spices to give it to color. Since this was our first time we just stuck with the plain old spaghetti. Also it was a rainy day and if we added the color component then I probably would have wanted to take the bin outside. I just don't trust LB yet to keep the color contained. Maybe when he is a little older. It was really fun to watch the progression of how he played with the spaghetti. I wish I could have captured the look on his face when I first poured the spaghetti into the bin. It was a look of both bewilderment and delight. Priceless.

Here's what we did. I cooked one box of regular spaghetti. Then I put some towels and the rubbermaid bin on the kitchen floor. I let the pasta cool and made sure I ran lots of cold water over it so that it wouldn't be hot to the touch or be super sticky. Then I poured it in the bin. That's it. I tried not to say too much at first and just let LB decide what to do.

This is sort of the look I got when I first put the spaghetti in the bin but not quite. As you can tell, he is pretty happy about it.

The first thing he did was try a bite. Totally acceptable with this activity.

It took him a few minutes before he decided to sit and really investigate. I am not sure if he was keeping his distance at first or what.

Finally he sits and really starts to explore. He started by just running his fingers through the noodles.

I love the look on his face in this picture! We decided it was raining spaghetti and he thought that was pretty hilarious.

The raining went on for quite some time.

The other great thing he did was hide his hands in the spaghetti. He started by just hiding one and would then pull it out and say, "there!" He also asked me do it and then we hid both of his hands at the same time. In this picture he is trying to hide his elbow so he is really sinking his arm deep in the noodles. LB recently learned how to say "elbow" so I think that is why he wanted to hide it. Funny kid.

He played with the spaghetti for a little over 30 minutes and he loved every minute of it. When he was done I dumped the spaghetti in the trash, put the towels in the laundry and that was it. We had so much fun that I went to the store over the weekend and got another cheap box of spaghetti. 

Perhaps I'll get brave next time and let him try and paint the spaghetti. I have a feeling it could either be really awesome or a total disaster. I'll let you know!