Fun and Slimy Cooked Spaghetti Halloween Sensory Bin

Are you looking for a fun and engaging Halloween sensory bin idea for kids of all ages? This fun and slimy cooked spaghetti Halloween sensory play is the perfect inexpensive way to play and learn this Halloween.

To create this sensory bin you will need spaghetti noodles, a pot to boil water, food coloring, and any additional embellishments. Many of the extra items can be found at the Dollar store and reused year after year.

For more Halloween fun for preschools, kindergarteners, and more, you can also check out this ghost painting craft as well as these fun Halloween fork painted crafts.

How to Make Cooked Spaghetti for Sensory Play

Cooked spaghetti makes the perfect sensory base for a Halloween sensory bin. It is tons of fun and the super slimy texture says Halloween to me! It is inexpensive to make large batches of and very easy to make as well.

Keep it in the fridge once it is finished to prep it for a class (just check for allergies first) or make it and play once it has cooled off.

To make cooked spaghetti for sensory play start by boiling your water and cooking your spaghetti noodles. Cook them for 1-2 minutes less than the directions on the package. This will help so that they don’t turn to mush.

Remove them from the stove, strain them in a strainer, and rinse them well with cold water.

Separate your pasta out into large gallon Ziploc bags. Make one bag for each color of pasta you want to dye. Add in 7-15 drops of one color of food coloring and a small amount of water to each bag depending on how bright or light you want your pasta colors to be.

Zip, shake, and move your bag around until the food coloring is coating the pasta. Dump your bag of colored pasta back out in the strainer and rinse again with cold water to remove the excess dye.

Then dump each color of pasta out onto a cookie sheet, a large tray, a bin, or a container. Add them all together and mix them up or pour each color next to each other. You can make fun color combinations depending on what color you dyed your pasta.

For a Halloween sensory bin, I’d suggest neon green, bright purple, orange, and black pasta. You can also do rainbow pasta, orange and black pasta, and more.

Cooked Spaghetti Halloween Sensory Bin Tips

To turn your cooked and colored spaghetti into a fun sensory bin as pictured use the colors purple, bright green, and orange. Add them all to a large container or bin as shown. Dump each color into a separate section of the bin.

*Add in Halloween embellishments. Some of our favorites include plastic skeletons, Halloween erasers, plastic snakes and bats, mini pumpkins (real and plastic), resin and magnetic letters, and more. Most of these can be found for very cheap at the Dollar store or a craft store like Hobby Lobby or Michaels (and many can be reused each year).

*Add in scoops, tongs, spoons, measuring cups, and more. For children who are old enough to make safe choices, you can also add scissors for cutting practice. We like to add scissors for older preschool and Kindergarten age children as it is awesome for their fine motor and they will love cutting the spaghetti.

Halloween Cooked Spaghetti Sensory Bin

Materials:

• 1-3 boxes of uncooked spaghetti noodles (depending on what size bin you are using)
• Gallon size Ziploc bags
• Food coloring
• Large bin or tray
• Halloween erasers
• Resin or magnetic letters
• Small plastic bats, skeletons, pumpkins, etc…
• Scoops, spoons, measuring cups, tongs, etc…
• Scissors (optional)

Directions:

1. Cook and dye spaghetti as shown in the directions above. To make a Halloween spaghetti sensory bin you should dye spaghetti noodles bright green, orange, purple, and black.
2. Rinse the pasta in a strainer in cold water and pour it out into a large bin or bucket. Pour each color next to the other colors in the bucket until it is full.
3. Add in various Halloween embellishments such as Halloween erasers, scoops, tongs, measuring cups, spoons, and more.
4. Add in optional magnetic or resin letters as well as optional scissors for fine motor practice.
5. Pair it with an optional letter chart and let kids play and explore. They can practice cutting skills by cutting the spaghetti into smaller pieces, finding and hiding letters and Halloween erasers, and exploring the gooey, slimy texture of the cooked pasta.

More Fun and New Textures with Other Kinds of Sensory Bins

This Halloween sensory bin is so simple and has such a new and fun texture for kids to play with. For some additional sensory play fun with unique sensory bases check out these fun ideas:

• DIY Cloud Dough Recipe – This fun cloud dough can be made in Halloween colors and used to mold fun Halloween shapes. It’s so soft and smells amazing!
• Colored Salt for Sensory Play – Using food coloring and table salt create a fun and easy sensory tray or small sensory bin that is perfect for practicing writing letters and numbers. Dye it orange or black for fun Halloween beginning writing practice.
• Bubble Foam – Create orange and black bubble foam, and add in some waterproof toys (or even pumpkins) for a fun and clean Halloween play idea.