Toddlers are notoriously difficult to keep entertained. Their attention spans are maybe 3 minutes at best!
I find it difficult to spend a lot of time setting up an activity when I know it’s not going to keep my toddler busy for very long.
Luckily, a simple toddler activity like this one barely requires any set up.
And if you are organized enough and know exactly where you can find an empty bottle and some pipe cleaners (or something similar to pipe cleaners), then it will take you approximately 20 seconds to put this activity together.
Take a look at this video, and you’ll see what I mean.
Recently we did a fine motor activity with a colander. Today, I present to you: fine motor activities, part 2.
I don’t have a creative name for this activity, so I’m calling it Pipe Cleaners in a Bottle.
How to Do this Fine Motor activity
For this one, you’ll need (you guessed it!) pipe cleaners and an empty bottle.
This bottle has been in our family for 5 months and has been lovingly decorated with glow-in-the-dark paint.
It’s fine if yours isn’t as beautiful. 😀
The objective is simple–drop the pipe cleaners into the bottle.
Depending on how old your child is and how big the mouth of the bottle is, this activity can be easy or hard.
The older the child, the smaller you’ll want the mouth of the bottle to be.
It’s challenging for my 21-month-old to do this because the pipe cleaners are so long. It takes her a few tries to get into the groove.
She also has to remember to hold onto the bottle. Because it’s plastic, it keeps getting knocked over when she tries to push the pipe cleaner in.
I think she had way more fun dumping the pipe cleaners out than putting them in.
She also kept throwing them up in the air, which wasn’t the point of the activity, but I guess if she’s having fun and not making too much of a mess… I can let that one go.
More Ways to play
If you don’t have pipe cleaners, try
- dry spaghetti noodles,
- straws,
- cotton swabs, or
- popsicle sticks.
We tried spaghetti noodles, but I think Lia enjoyed breaking them in half more than putting them in the bottle.
Oh well. If I have to sacrifice a few spaghetti noodles to entertain my toddler, I’m OK with that!
Will You Entertain Your Toddler with this activity?
Try it out and let me know in the comments how it goes!
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