Little Bro - Enjoying Being Four...Now No More Three!

Now that Little Bro is officially four years old, there are some changes around here...three is no longer his favorite number, now four is...he pretty much wants nothing to do with the number 3, as he has been there and done that...which works out well in most areas, except for math...
the number 3 should still be an integral part of the number line and of math work in general, but Little Bro does not see it this way.
While completing his math work, he was supposed to select a number from the basket, and then, place that many on the math mat. He chose the butterfly net mat, primarily because he couldn't wait to use the baby bow tie pasta that he had seen his daddy help color and that had been drying on the lanai the last few days.
Well, Little Bro did his work pretty much as it was presented to him, except that 3 was M.I.A. from the line up.
He kept doing 4...
He seems to like everything about four...how it sounds, how it looks on his fingers, and how it feels.
Little Bro is absolutely convinced that he is now taller and smarter now that he has turned four.
He keeps wanting to look in the mirror and wants to get on the scale, as he is so sure that being four has made all the difference.

Interesting that becoming four has given him some new found confidence.

Wish I could say that I feel so much smarter now that I am another year older...actually thinner...thinner would be nice.

I still feel the same as I did last week, so guess I will have to just try the old fashioned way and stay on top of reading and academia, in addition to being diet, exercise, and staying active to feel smarter and thinner:)

Making Colored Pasta for Crafts and for Montessori Inspired P.L. Work

The new baby bow tie pasta...nice, deep colors...thanks to my Dear Hubby for lending a hand with dying the pasta...he loves to help out when a project involves using food coloring.

The twenty year old pasta...a little faded, but hangin' in there for yet one more year.


Well, after nearly twenty years (yes, I did say twenty and I am not exaggerating!) of using the same bag of colored pasta, I am cranking out some new pasta for some math work for my sons.

In 1990, shortly after moving to Virginia, I moved into an apartment and found out that my neighbor, Lauren, was also getting prepared to start her first year as a teacher.
We quickly became great friends and worked making materials for our classrooms and snacks for us to eat while we worked...

One of the first things we made was colored pasta for crafts.

We had gone to a variety of stores and bought several different types of pasta, including some little ones that looked like jungle animals, some that were sports themed, some alphabet pasta, and some penne, rigatoni, and wheels too.

Lauren knew a great trick to make the pasta colors dry faster, and that is that you add some rubbing alcohol to the food coloring so that the color dries faster.

Since it has been sooooooo many years since making this pasta, I am going to have to guess at the ratio of food coloring to rubbing alcohol...I think we just put several drops of food coloring and maybe either a teaspoon or a tablespoon of rubbing alcohol into a baggie...

Update: we used a tablespoon of rubbing alcohol to several drops of food coloring and the colors turned out great!

Then, you shake the bag gently, pour the pasta onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper, turn a fan on low to help dry the pasta, and voila! Colored pasta!

So that you will know, not all of the pasta lasted for all of the twenty years...
The alphabet pasta bit the dust first, as it was the most used by the children, but also the most fragile. The jungle animal pasta lasted and would probably still be in good condition if I knew where it was.

The real winners in the pasta longevity contest are the wheels, the rigatoni, and the penne.
Over the years, the colors only faded a little bit...and lo and behold, you can re - dye them to get a deeper, richer color after several years of use.

For today's pasta, we are going to dye Piccolini - Mini Farfalle.
Growing up, we just called these "baby bow ties".

As far as uses for these, we are going to use them as counters (to look like bow ties for clowns and to look like butterflies for Spring work).

I will also have them out from time to time for sorting, patterning, and dry transfer work.
As far as the other pasta...
Alphabet pasta - for letter and sound recognition, art work (name mosaics)
Jungle animal and sports pasta - counting, patterning, and sorting work
Penne, rigatoni, and wheels - for patterning, counting, and stringing (had these together as a mixed bag of pasta, along with colored plastic drinking straws...think that adding the drinking straws to the mix helped to keep the pasta from breaking in the bag.)


Will have to also share some of the other things we made way back when...such as some great dip for veggies and some awesome snack mix!

Mommies and teachers, snacks like these make work sessions so much fun, so I will get the recipes from Lauren and will share with you, too.

Happy Valentine's Day!