Educational Activities With Pasta

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Izzy and I were in TJ Maxx walking around, being Maxxinsitas! And I have to say, TJ Maxx is like a Target to me. I always find fun things that I didn’t go to the store for. Which brings me to the heart pasta. Izzy spotted it and asked me if we could buy it. I immediately thought of all the fun and educational things we could do with the pasta and said yes. I hope you enjoy all the activities I listed below.

Pasta Sorting

What you need: fun and colorful pasta & shoe bin

Some different pastas & bins linked here

Sorting is an important math skill for young children to work on. Basic sorting requires the ability to sort based on one difference. In this case, all of the pasta is the same shape, hearts. The one difference we are sorting is the color. If there were big and small hearts, all different colors that would allow for 2 differences when sorting. They could sort all of the big green and little green hearts in piles and so on and so forth. NOTE: A child must master sorting by 1 difference before they can move towards the ability to think of sorting by 2 or more.

Pasta Patterns

What you need: fun and colorful pasta

Some different pastas linked here

Patterns are another math skill that are important for the foundations of math concepts. Start with introducing AB patterns to your child. Also keep in mind that young children need to hear the pattern 3 times before they can tell you what is coming next. Example: “Green, purple, green, purple, green, purple. What comes next?”

Once your child can do this, work with them on creating their own AB pattern. Add extra fun by having your child string the pasta as they make the pattern. This is great for fine motor and coordination practice.

If your child is an AB pattern pro, you can move on to more advance patterns such as ABC, AAB, AABB and ABAB.

Pasta Letters

What you need: fun and colorful pasta

Some different pastas linked here

Izzy is almost 4 and we have been doing a lot of work on writing letters and letter sounds. If your child is at this level, go ahead an have them create letters. For beginners you can create a letter with pasta and ask the child to copy you. Break it down slowly for them. Example: For letter L you would say, “We are making a big line down.” As you say that, make your big line down and encourage your child to help you or create their own next to you. Then tell them the next step, “Now we need a little line across, at the bottom.” Again show them how you are creating a line at the bottom to finish making letter L. You can again encourage them to build it with you are create their own next to you.

Pasta Counting

What you need: fun and colorful pasta & shoe bin

Some different pastas & bins linked here

Pasta counting, pretty self explanatory, right? This is something you can incorporate while doing some of the other activities. I listed a few ideas below to better explain what I mean.

After creating letter “L” as noted in the example for the pasta letter activity, ask your child how many pastas they think were used to create the letter.

Once you have finished sorting with your child, count each pile together. “How many red ones do we have?” You can even estimate together which pile has more, based on how they look. Then together count to see which pile has the biggest number and which has the smallest.

After a pattern has been made, count the pasta to see how many you used in the pattern.

Pasta Weighing

What you need: measuring cups1/2 cup & 1 cup, fun and colorful pasta & balance scale.

All linked here

Have your child fill each measuring cup with pasta. Then estimate which cup will weigh more. Now weigh/balance the pasta. Have your child fill the 1/2 cup again and add to the other 1/2 cup. Discuss how 1/2 and 1/2 is the same as 1 whole cup. This is a great intro to weighing and fractions.

I hope you all have a blast with these activities!

XO Eryka