When I asked children who liked spaghetti, every hand went up. Because of this, some of my classes celebrated January 4 with a game called "Spaghetti Feast." We played it in two different ways. Swim noodles were used as the spaghetti and placed in the middle of the floor in a big pile. Children stood on poly spots in a big circle around the spaghetti. The dots were placed about 12 feet away from the spaghetti. Each child had two poly spots and stood on the front spot with a matching color spot behind him/her. Students had to get to the spaghetti by constantly moving the back spot forward and jumping or stepping on it. In this way, they could advance to the spaghetti and pick one up. They had to return to their cone in the same manner and were never supposed to touch the floor. They tried to do this quickly so they could get as much spaghetti as possible. Later we took away the spots and did this activity running. This picked up the pace of the game and kept children moving. I was impressed with how quickly the preschool children caught on to this game. They had fun.
The plate of spaghetti is in the middle and students are ready
to move their poly spots forward to get some noodles.
Jumping or stepping on the front poly spot is how this student advances.
This student prepares to move the back poly spot forward
so she can take another step forward towards her cone.
Success! The plate of spaghetti has been reached and this child picks up a noddle to take back.
Transferring the back poly spot forward on each step, this
student has successfully reached his cone with the noodle.
Students run towards the spaghetti to grab a noodle during the game that only involved running.
Students reach the middle of the spaghetti and grab a noodle to take back to their cones.
With his fingers, this child shows he got three spaghetti noodles.
