One of my new years resolutions this year was to do more diverse activities with my kids! We are getting back to homeschooling this week and I have made a bit of a schedule of structured activities to do with my 17 month old in the morning, then do homeschool with my ten year old in the afternoon!
I am excited to try out a bunch of new activities with my little girl and am happy to share them with you each week in posts and with some neat printables I'm sharing with you too!
My hope is that we can make a great portfolio of activities that are easy to do with things around the house that you can pull out anytime!
So without further wait....
Colander Cleaners!
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I got this great activity going during the holidays one afternoon. Getting the house ready for the coming month of guests, family dinners, and less clean up time I was trying to organize the house and what I was going to do in the coming weeks.
My toddler, being a typical one year old had gotten bored with her toys and wanted something new to do! So having a package of craft pipe cleaners in our leftover craft things I showed her how to thread them into the holes of a colander! And she loved it! In fact she kept at it for quite a while!
It's very easy to do and teaches great fine motor skills!
Even if you don't have a colander handy you can use anything with holes - even take a cardboard box or shoe box and punch some holes in it!
Below you'll find the instructions and another link to the printable!
I hope you and your little one enjoy!
What You’ll Need
- A Colander with decent sized holes (or a few with different sizes!)
- OR a piece of cardboard or cardboard box punched with holes (pencil sized)
- Craft Pipe Cleaners (fuzzy sticks)
Ages
This activity is perfect fine motor practice for toddlers aged 18 months right up to three but is also fun for preschoolers, and even older children can help their younger sibling with it! Even I had fun!
Skills
Fine motor development and direction following.
What To Do
Start by sticking the pipe cleaners into the holes yourself. Show your toddler how to pull them out.Now show him or her how to push them in the holes by holding the bottom of the pipe cleaner (holding the top will lead to frustration!)
Also show them how to bend and twist each to make fun shapes to pull out if they are old enough!
Let them go nuts!
This sounds like fun for little ones!
ReplyDeleteAwe! This sounds like a great way to keep little hands busy! Great post!
ReplyDeleteThank you for the printable. This sounds like a fun project for the little ones to keep them occupied and keep their imaginations going.
ReplyDeletevery cute idea it is always nice to have little projects to keep the kids from getting bored
ReplyDeleteThis is a great idea. Also, I love your New Year's Resolution.
ReplyDeleteOh my goodness I love this idea.... it's so simple yet so much fun. My son is 15 months old and I think even he can probably figure it out and he would think it is so meat to have the pipe cleaners sticking out everywhere!! And I think your new years resolution is great!!
ReplyDeleteHey I wanted to thank you for sharing this. After checking your post out the first time I picked up a package of pipe cleaners and tried this with my 2 1/2 year old. It was fun and a part of our activity rotation now.
ReplyDeleteMy daughter will really enjoy this. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDelete