Black Spaghetti Boneyard

Yesterday, Kingston had his best buddy Olivia over to play. I wanted to set up a few Halloween-y sensory activities for them, and this was by far the favorite! To make the black spaghetti, I started with some whole wheat pasta. I chose whole wheat because it was already dark in color, and I wanted to make sure that this pasta was very dark! After boiling, I tossed with some canola oil (in hindsight, I would have used A LOT less, maybe just a cap full instead of the 3 tbl. I used. Then I added red, blue, and green food coloring until it was a nice dark black. I hand tossed it (TIP Wear rubber gloves or you will look like you have gangrene on yours hands and the people at the pediatricians office will think you have some kind of weird contagious disease and hide their children from you ... GLOVES I tell you!), and then added some skull erasers and bone erasers  to complete the bin.

I sat the kiddos down in front of it and let them explore! Let me just say that this pasta was cold, slimy, and tons of fun.  I took a bunch of pictures and then abandoned the camera so that I could dig my hands in with them! I can't believe we have never played with pasta before! They both tentatively touched the skulls and bones first. Kingston picked a couple up and tossed them on the floor. 

Livvy wasted no time at all taking giant clumps of the heavy black spaghetti and dropping it all over the floor around her. She absolutely loved the feel of the pasta. We talked about the colors black and white, how slippery the spaghetti was, and the texture. 

When I draped the pasta on her head, she got SO excited! She was shrieking with laughter, and shaking her head at me. As they played, the oil from the pasta began to make their hair super greasy and left an oily sheen on their skin. They didn't seem to mind as they explored the slippery strands. 

Kingston was more tentative about digging into the spaghetti. He was much happier picking up a couple pieces at a time and running around the kitchen with them. 

After peeking at the amazing and fun black spaghetti boneyard mess that Liv was sitting in the middle of, Kingston was further intrigued and plopped down to help her examine the strands! We buried the bones and skulls and dug them up. They laughed every time I said, "Where is it?! THERE IT IS!" 

By the time they were done, they were greasy, grimy messes! I didn't actually think the next part through, the part where the babies were then falling and slipping all over the oily floor. They were very good sports about it though as I gave them wipes baths and scrubbed the kitchen floor!

Their smiles were totally worth the mess! 

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