Sensory Activity: Dry Pasta Noodles

Pasta noodles make for a great sensory activity for toddlers and preschoolers to explore with their sense or touch and even sound.

I set out a tub of macaroni noodles along with several items to play with.

Items to include for this touch and sound sensory activity:

• Macaroni [or other small dry pasta]
• Bottles with lids [several sizes would be great!]
• Measuring cups and scoops

Set them out on a blanket, or even better would be a plastic shower curtain, to help contain the mess. The blank not only makes it easier for clean up but it also sets boundaries for the kids to keep the pasta in an area [and not all over the entire house]. Get more tips on keeping messy play clean!

Of course, the boys immediately begin filling up the bottles with the pasta. Dumping them into each other and out again.

And repeat. Over and over.

What I didn’t expect was the maracas that were made!

Once the bottles were full and lids tightly secured, the boys shook them and made noises! Henry even did a little comparison to see how the pasta sounded different in each of the bottles.

Is this bottle quieter or louder when its shaken?

Does the pasta sound higher or lower?

Which turned this sensory activity into something other than for just the sense of touch, but the for hearing too!

When it was time to clean up, the boys diligently scooped all the pasta noodles back into the large bottle again for storage. Dad stopped by and saw it was taking quite awhile and found a better solution.

A piece of paper as a funnel. It works slick and the boys just thought it was great that a piece of paper could be used for something other than writing on!

We have done a bunch more simple sensory activities like this, including corn meal, cloud dough, shaving cream, and bubbles!

Usually our sensory activities are about the sense of touch. I’m excited to find and do other activities that explore the sense of sound like this one.

 George is 2 years old. Henry is 4.5 years old.