Tapioca Pearl tub

If your familiar with water beads, you will know how many learning experiences they can provide and how much fun you can have. There are however some who find it hard to use a material in play that is not really used for eating. Here i have found the perfect solution....Tapioca Pearls!

These gorgeous little beauties are FOOD! Found at your Asian grocer sometimes called Boba and are used for making bubble tea which i think was originated in Taiwan. Only cost me a $2 per pack so i purchased 3 packs and put them uncooked into the tub with chopsticks,spoons,bowls and tweezers to use for transferring. These are hard when uncooked so supervision is important but once cooked i think any age would be suitable!

I put out a paint tray and Tara sorted the colours

After the dry pearls exhausted themselves in play, we cooked them up as per the directions on the pack. Very simple just place them in a pot of water and once they have risen to the surface they are ready.

Drain them and you can see they are VERY similar to waterbeads,squishy,rolly and a little more mushy!

We thought we should try the recipe of bubble tea and peach tea with bubbles but both kids thought it was very beautiful but a little strange :/

Playing with them was much more fun. They found them stickier than waterbeads but for all the carers that just cant bring themselves to use waterbeads these are a great alternative

They were soo sticky we found we could stick them to paper and make a picture from them..check out Mason's tummy to see HOW sticky they get!

These lasted us nearly two days,they are food so will not last that long at room temperature but they were a great addition to our weekend and bought up plenty of conversations about other countries foods and tastes!