Spaghetti Painting

What You Need:

• Cooked spaghetti noodles
• White construction paper
• Tempera paints, paintbrushes
• Paper plates
• Newspaper
• Optional: Other types of pasta (see step #6); uncooked spaghetti sticks and liquid glue

What You Do:

1. Put newspaper down under white construction paper. This project could get a little messy! Lay out a few colors of paint on paper plates while you cook the pasta.
2. Once the pasta is cooked and has cooled, drain it on a paper towel for a minute or two so it's not too slimy!
3. Once the paper towel has absorbed some of the excess water, let your child take a noodle, dip it in the paint on the paper plate, then lay it on the construction paper to create patterns. Your child may either lay the noodle flat to create a line of color, or roll it around to make a more varied pattern.
4. Repeat step #3 with different noodles and different paint colors. Put noodles in the trash after use so no one is tempted to eat one!
5. Another fun way to create spaghetti art is to use paintbrushes to paint colors on the construction paper first. Then give him the spaghetti noodles to place around the painting to create imprints on the painting. Let him experiment and have fun!
6. Once you’ve explored the shapes of spaghetti, you can try using other types of pasta in different shapes and thicknesses, like linguini, wagon wheel, farfalle, fusilli and ziti!
7. After the paint dries, you may want to frame your child’s art with uncooked spaghetti sticks glued around the border. We suggest displaying it in the kitchen -- bravissimo!