DIY: Pasta Beads

I have been planning this beading project for weeks now, I have already accumulated all the materials needed but can't find time to do it because we're pretty busy at work now plus all the stuffs and preparations we need to do for our Christmas party. Finally I was able to do it last week since I was on my 1 week Christmas leave.

These pasta beads are actually easy to make, but will need several hours to let them fully dry.

Materials:
-macaroni pasta
-food coloring
-plastics/ziplocks

Steps:
Put about a half cup of macaroni pasta (uncooked) inside a plastic, one for each color you want to make. Add 10-15 drops of food coloring, or you may mix alcohol with the food coloring first before pouring into the macaroni, I guess it will be easier to dye the pasta this way.

Seal your plastic and shake until all pasta is fully dyed. Yo may ass more dye if you want a brighter color.

Open the plastic and allow them to sit for  awhile.

Then lay them out on a tray lined with plastic to let them dry fully.

Beading activity is a great fine motor skill activity. I have been engaging Jashley with this kind of activities lately to help her refine her movement. I love that even her concentration skill is developing with this activity.

We use colorful fuzzy pipe cleaners with these DIY beads for our beading activity, you may use strings or ribbons tied on one end for older kids.

We have used this also on one of our sorting and counting activity, that will help her building her math skills.

That's it for now. We're looking forward for more activities using these colorful pasta beads.