Rainbow Spaghetti

[ $5 - $10 | 30 - 60 minutes | moderately messy  ]

Next time you cook spaghetti or linguine, toss an extra serving of pasta in the pot and set it aside to make rainbows.  To prepare, mix the red, blue, and yellow food coloring with water to your desired intensity.  Line a cookie sheet with an old towel or a few paper towels to help contain spills and make cleanup easier.  If your child is able, have her mix together different combinations of the primary colors to make secondary colors.  Experiment, and let her try to guess what color each combination will make.  In case you’ve forgotten your color theory, here’s a table to help remind you:

Red + Blue = Purple
Red + Yellow = Orange
Yellow + Blue = Green
Red + Yellow + Blue = Brown

Then, have her put some spaghetti in each cup with the colored water.  It takes several minutes for the spaghetti to absorb the dye, but you can keep your child’s interest by asking her to help you stir the pasta in each cup.  Keep checking the spaghetti, and when it has reached a shade you like, remove it from the dye and let it drain on a paper towel.  Then help your child make rainbows on a plate.  You can follow the spectrum (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple) or let your child express her creativity by choosing different patterns.  You can also practice basic geometric shape recognition or twist the pasta into letters or words.

You can use this project to teach color identification to younger kids, or help preschoolers and older kids understand basic color theory.  You can stretch out pieces of red, yellow, and blue spaghetti half an inch apart and have your child fill in the spaces with the secondary color that is “between” each primary pair. You can also use this project to help kids with sensory problems that might keep them from eating certain textures of foods.  If your child is sensitive to texture, she might not want to touch the cold, cooked pasta with her bare fingers.  Let her stir the spaghetti with a spoon or fork, or help her develop fine motor skills by showing her how to use tweezers (or chopsticks!) to manipulate the pasta.  Once she’s engrossed in the project, she just might forget to be squeamish and abandon her tools in favor of her fingers.