This activity was a great way to get kids constructing in a creative way – just by providing them with pieces of Styrofoam and pipe cleaners!
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This activity really works on fine motor skills when the kids are manipulating the pipe cleaners.
To prepare for this activity I cut some pipe cleaners into thirds (Note: use a wire cutter for this – NOT scissors!) and broke up a large Styrofoam packing block into small pieces. The lovely thick white pipe cleaners (also called fuzzy sticks) were kindly sent to us by craftprojectideas.com.
I set everything out and invited our friends Miss E (6yrs), Mr F (4.5 yrs) and Miss L (4.5yrs) to create whatever they wanted from it. They were immediately drawn to it – especially Mr F who doesn’t always participate in the crafts and activities that I suggest!
All three of the kids quickly got the hang of pushing the pipe cleaners into the Styrofoam pieces. I showed them how to make some easy shapes like triangles and squares. Then I left them to it!
Miss E decided to make a big long chain.
Miss L played with just the pipe cleaners for quite some time before incorporating the Styrofoam.
Mr F experimented with all different kinds of shapes and ideas, but didn’t settle on a final product. However – this sculpture was a group effort!
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This looks like so much fun! I wonder what my 4 year old would make!
What a great way to get extra use out of styrofoam! That looks so fun!
Oh this looks like it would be a blast! Pinning!
What a fun invitation to create!