Make a pipe cleaner toy

This easy homemade toy idea can be popped into a toddler busy bag for those times when you need your child to sit still: doctor's waiting rooms, car trips and plane trips. It's also a good learning game that will help develop colour recognition and fine motor skills.

What you need:

• 1 x small Pringles container with lid
• 4 x pipe cleaners in different colours
• wire cutters/pliers
• a metal skewer
• coloured stick-on dots (matching the colours of your pipe cleaners)
• some coloured craft paper or similar (to decorate the can)

Number of players:
1

Activity:

Using the height of the can as a guide, cut your pipe cleaners into sections that will fit, standing up inside the can.

Now stick a red, yellow, blue and green dot on the lid of the can.

Heat the tip of a metal skewer on a gas stove top and use it to melt/pierce holes through the middle of each sticky dot.

Get your child to do a drawing to cover the outside of the tin.  Cut it to size and stick it on to cover the Pringles logo.

Encourage your toddler to match the colours of the dots to the colours of the pipe cleaners and push all the pipe cleaners through the holes.

Hours of fun! (For a toddler, that is.)

Put it in your toddler busy bag and take it with you next time you go to the doctor's, on a long car trip or anywhere you need your toddler to sit still for a little while.

• Thanks to our sister company Kidspot Australia for creating the instructional video.