WARNING! This activity requires supervision…or all the fruit loops may get eaten 😀 😀 😀
But when supervised properly there’s so much to be learned!
This is yet another great use of an empty egg carton!
There just happened to be 6 columns (one for each color of the rainbow) so I painted them accordingly 🙂
Then I took a pen and poked 6 little holes in the lid aligned with the painted columns.
Next, I stuck rainbow-colored pipe cleaners through the holes and pulled them through until it created a rainbow shape (longer on the end colors, shorter in the middle). Making them different lengths isn’t necessary, but I thought it added a little extra math to be able to have the arc shape and give the opportunity to compare long and short 🙂
Bend the parts of the pipe cleaners sticking out the top of the lid so that they lay flat and tape them down so they won’t move.
I made sure the lengths inside the carton were short enough that if you bend them down the carton can be closed for easy storage!
I trimmed them to be equal lengths in their arc shape (outer 2 same length, second 2 in same length, middle 2 same length). Also – if your kiddo is just starting out with fine motor stringing like this, the shorter the length the easier it is for them. If the pipe cleaner is long, it will bend and move around more making it harder for your kiddo to thread the fruit loop on.
Lastly add the matching color of fruit loops.
It’s ready for play!
They will have to use all those tiny muscles in their fingers and wrists as well as eye-hand coordination to pinch and grasp…
… and maneuver and thread each piece.
They will use their math skills to sort and match by color (which they can practice naming for language skills)…
…as well as adding, subtracting, comparison, fractions, and even beginning equations as you take away fruit loops from the egg compartment and add them to the pipe cleaner:
“Look! There are 6 fruit loops on the pipe cleaner and 4 in the cup. If we count them all or ‘add’ them there are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10! That means that 6 + 4 = 10! If I take away or ‘subtract’ one fruit loop from the pipe cleaner and ‘add’ it to the cup now there are 5 in the cup and 5 on the pipe cleaner! They have ‘equal’ numbers of fruit loops! That means that one ‘half’ are in the cup and one ‘half’ are on the pipe cleaner!”
If you cut the pipe cleaners to different lengths, they will be able to see that a longer pipe cleaner can hold MORE fruit loops than shorter pipe cleaners (more than, less than etc. = comparison words!)
So much math so little time 😀
Have fun!
Like it? Please share or follow to see more posts like it!
