Fine Motor Activity with Straws

What can you do with straws? I bought a whole box of straws and figured that I’d be able to come up with a bunch of toddler activities to use them. So I was searching Pinterest, have you been over there? If you are, you can follow me on Pinterest as well. I saw a lot of activities that used cardboard boxes and they would cut holes into them for you to place the straws or pipe cleaners into them. You could also do the same with plastic containers as well.   I also saw someone using a colander and loved that idea since it didn’t require me to cut anything. So low and behold, guess what I used? My small colander that I use for my utensils in my dish rack. Boo yah! Instead of the colander you could use:

• cardboard box
• Pringles chip container
• plastic container ie. yogurt, fruit, sour cream or margarine

To place in the holes of the container you could use:

• straws
• pipe cleaners
• coffee stirrers
• pick up stix
• pasta

I cut the straws into smaller pieces for another activity and then my little one grabbed all of them. After she placed the pipe cleaners into the colander, she used the small pieces of straws and stuck it through the end of the pipe cleaners. I didn’t even think of that but it did stretch out the activity even more. My son, M2, came along to see what we were doing and joined in the fun as well. He also enjoyed threading the pieces of straws through the pipe cleaner as well. For the next time, I’d purchase fatter straws, these straws were really skinny and I had originally intended to use them for a lacing activity but the straws were too small for the laces that I had on hand.

 Peg Board Set – Montessori Occupational Therapy Fine Motor Toy for Toddlers and Preschoolers with 30 Pegs in a Board for Color Recognition Sorting & Counting 150+ Screen-Free Activities for Kids: The Very Best and Easiest Playtime Activities from FunAtHomeWithKids.com! Melissa & Doug Deluxe Wooden 27-Piece Lacing Beads in a Box Melissa & Doug Deluxe Pounding Bench Melissa & Doug Shape Sorting Cube Melissa & Doug Deluxe 10-Piece Magnetic Fishing Game

& 

If you need other ideas for toddler activities, try some of these educational quiet bins from How Wee Learn. Each of these activities are super easy to set up and they provided my daughter with hours of quiet entertainment.  

You can also see my other list of toddler activities.

More Fun Toddler Activitities