Friday morning I decided that I wanted to do an activity with my daughter and the little boys I was taking care of that day. I thought it would be nice to use the homemade playdough I had sitting around and something with fall colors.
I decided that I could easily make colored pasta and then shape the playdough into the shape of a turkey's body. The kids could then use the pasta to decorate the turkeys. I also added in some long pieces of dried spaghetti so the kids would be able to make longer "feathers" by putting the penne pasta over the spaghetti pasta.
While the kids were making their turkeys we talked about the colors, what the playdough felt like, if the noodles stayed in well, what patterns they could make, how they could make the noodles look like feathers on a turkey, and how the colors of the noodles and turkey looked a lot like fall leaves.
They enjoyed this activity a lot and after finishing their turkeys moved on to making their own shapes with the playdough and decorating those. It is great for fine motor skills, sensory play, creative play, learning about patterns, and colors.
To make the pasta all you do is get dried pasta, fill a bowl half way with white vinegar and add food coloring of you choice (I used probably at least 10 drops of color per bowl) then add pasta so that it is covered by the vinegar. Let it sit for about 5 minutes, maybe a little more, stirring a couple times while it sits. Then dump out the liquid and lay the pasta flat on a cookie sheet to dry. It took about two hours maybe three for ours to dry completely.
Now you are ready, just set out the materials for the kids to get to work.
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