Spaghetti Towers

We have been busy practising our threading skills this week.  All the children I look after enjoyed having a go at this activity, ranging in age from nearly 2, to 9.

Spaghetti, stood upright in playdough make a great frame for our threading.

I then gave the children pasta tubes, cut up straws, buttons and Cheerios to thread. 

The children were keen to join in and spend a long time selecting resources and threading them.

This little boy had fantastic concentration and threading skills considering  his age.

Others were keen to help him out at times, when he found it a bit tricky!

He even managed to simultaneously keep his balance on the stool he insisted on sitting on, whilst threading.  I think thats quite an achievement for a nearly 2 year old!

With the over 3's, to extend their learning, I drew their attention to the
 patterns the older children had made that morning and we worked hard to create our own.  Sometimes we had to say our pattern out loud to
work out what would come next.

And here are some of our creations.  Not sure how well they survived the journey home though!

I found some Pennoni Rigati pasta in Asda this morning which are huge compared to normal pasta tubes.  These, with straws, I thought would make a great version of this activity for even younger children.

 

Just need a bit of food colouring to make them more interesting!

Links to EYFS:

PSED: Making Relationships (working together and helping each other)

CLL: Handwriting (showing good control when positioning the straws / pasta on the spaghetti)
PSRN: Numbers as Labels and for Counting (counting / estimating how many objects have been threaded)

PSRN: Shape, Spaces, Measures ( Attempts at / recognition of patterns, ordering towers by height)