It’s summer time. The kids are out of school and need something to do besides watch cartoons or drive parents crazy. Enter Pinterest. A search for kids’ activities yields endless possibilities for easy, inexpensive fun both indoors and out. This summer at Mumbling Mommy, we’ll be trying out some projects we’ve found on Pinterest and sharing the results. Hopefully, our summer boredom busters will help inspire some fun for other families.

Summer Boredom Busters Pipe Cleaner Activity

We’re kicking off with an amazingly simple activity that will keep toddlers and young children busy for about 30 minutes — maybe longer if you’re lucky. This pipe cleaner and colander project is good for developing fine motor skills, and you can practice color identification. It made for a good, brief diversion for my daughters, ages 2 and 6, on a recent hot afternoon we spent indoors.

Materials Needed: 

• One package of colored pipe cleaners
• One or more colanders, depending on how many children you need to entertain

Show your child how to poke the pipe cleaners through the holes in the colander. You can just stick the pipe cleaners straight in, or you can bend them to form designs or shapes. You can also put both ends of a pipe cleaner into separate holes in the colander. The finished project doesn’t have to look like anything, although you certainly can make it look like a turkey, porcupine, or other animal. It’s simply fun to poke stuff into holes. My daughters definitely thought so.

Have any good summer boredom busters? Share your ideas with us!

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