Basic Cereal Threading Activity for Toddlers

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This basic threading activity is super simple to set up. Grab some play dough to act as a holder.

Once again, I’m returning to basic activities I’ve done in the past with the older boys and redoing them with Louis while he’s still somewhat little. Scroll down to see this activity when Henry was 3 years old.

Roll the play dough in balls, or you could do a long tube like we did in the skip counting activity.

Stab a piece of spaghetti into each ball of play dough.

Then pour a bowl of Cheerios, or other o-shaped cereal.

Grab a Cheerio and thread it onto the spaghetti.

I had Multi-Grain Cheerios, so Louis sorted the cereal by color.

Light-colored cereal went on the green play dough balls and the dark went on the purple balls.

I set out 5 balls of play dough with 5 pieces of spaghetti. Two would have been enough. It takes a lot of cereal to fill a spaghetti noodle!

If you’re looking for more threading ideas, check out this post with 32 materials that help strengthen fine motor skills.

This is a great activity to do around snack time too!

You can add learning onto this threading activity in a few ways:

1. Add skip counting to it, read how to do that here.
2. Add patterning, especially if you have different colored cereal (such as multi-grain Cheerios, or Fruity Cheerios)
3. Count the cereal as you put it on. Put five pieces of cereal onto each piece of spaghetti.

Below is our Cereal Threading when Henry was 3 years old.

Play dough is still Henry’s favorite go-to activity.

To start, I made a few play dough balls and lined them up in a row.
Mentioning the pattern (yellow-green-yellow) as I went along.

I asked along the way, ‘What color of play dough comes next? Sometimes Henry guessed right, but it was just a guess.

Next came the dry spaghetti noodles. Henry carefully lined them up without breaking them. Using cheerios and hollow noodles, Henry threaded the spaghetti with a tower of treats!

Another chance for a pattern lesson (noodle-cheerio-noodle).

The patterning hasn’t caught on, just more exposure to it.

Eventually, the noodles were plowed over with Henry’s tractor. This proved to be the most fun!

What are your favorite activities that engage fine motor skills?

Basic Cereal Threading Activity for Toddlers on handsonaswegrow.com