Breaking Hearts Fine Motor Play

Do you have a little heartbreaker at home? We have the perfect activity for kids to break hearts this Valentine's Day!

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One of our favorite sensory materials is dyed acini di pepe pasta. We color it with a bit of gel food coloring and vinegar. We have used it as "rocks" in our construction truck small world and as a filler in our Valentine's Day sensory bin and our Easter sensory bin! One of the best parts about this sensory material is when it dries after you dye it, it forms together into fun chunks that we love breaking apart!

This Valentine's Day we decided to make hearts to break! Our preschooler E carefully spooned the still damp pasta into a heart shaped cookie cutter on parchment paper. We pressed down to mold the pasta into the heart shape then gently lifted the cookie cutter. After a few hours of drying our hearts were solid and ready for play!

The hearts were totally irresistible! We loved breaking them in half and then into smaller and smaller pieces.

The crumble pretty easily in the most satisfying way! Once the pieces are all broken apart you can save them in an air tight container for sensory play or they can be pretend sprinkles for play dough cookies or ice cream. The possibilities are endless with this versatile sensory material!

Our toddler was curious about these hearts, too! You can try this activity with even the smallest kiddos. If they mouth the uncooked pasta they won't choke and it won't harm them if they accidentally taste or swallow a few!

Every bit of this activity included fine motor work from E mixing in the color and spooning the pasta into the molds to both kids breaking apart the hearts and picking up the small pieces!

We put the hearts on plates on a blanket so we could easily shake off any tiny bits that got away for immediate clean up after our play time was over for the day!

Looking for more heart breaking activities?
We've joined up with some of our favorite kid bloggers to bring you
the Little Heartbreakers Blog Hop:

Anti Valentine's Day Baked Cotton Balls from Lalymom

Fine Motor Gelatin Heart Sensory Play from And Next Comes L

Candy Heart Breaking Fine Motor Activity from Fun-A-Day

Catapult Science for Kids- Can You Break My Heart? on Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tail

Heartbreaker Smashing Peanut Shells from Sugar Aunts

Color Mixing with Heart Snowball Smashing from How Wee Learn

Bubble Wrap Heart Breaking from House of Burke

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