Sorting Pasta Shapes

There are times when you need to be getting on with preparing the next meal and you have your little ones snapping around your ankles getting ever so slightly in the way - if you can sit them down at a table or on the floor and keep them occupied, then you'll find that you can get on with your work that much more easily! Here's a great idea to help occupy your toddlers in the kitchen...

Take a mixing bowl and add a small handful of three or four different types and shapes of dried pasta - bows, tubes, spirals, twists and so on.  Mix them all up.  Give your little one a muffin tray and have them sort the pasta back into the right shapes, filling the cups in the muffin tray with each of the different types of pasta.  Hopefully this will keep them occupied for some time and they will enjoy this as much as doing a puzzle.

For older children you can make the challenge a little harder by using rice, lentils and other smaller dried foods amongst the pasta.

This is a great activity to let your children loose on every time you want to cook in the kitchen and they want to 'cook' too!  This activity incorporates shape matching and encourages their fine motor skills as they have to pick up small pieces of pasta and place them in the right place.