pipe cleaner sorting jars

last week, i made lacing shapes for my 3 yr old son. this week, i worked on pipe cleaner sorting jars and i am actually attempting a little tutorial.  this exercise is great for finger dexterity, prewriting skills, and sorting in several ways.

once you see what i'm talking about, you'll see it's pretty easy to make one and basically self explanatory. but, if you're like me and like a bit more detail in how something was made, this tutorial is for you. a little disclaimer: i'm pretty sure there are better ways to do a couple of the things involved, but i was working with what i had and if you have any better/easier ideas, please feel free to let me know!!

if you have a younger child who isn't ready for the sorting part of this, you can just make one jar and have them just have fun threading the pipe cleaners in and out of the lid.

supplies needed: (i took 2 pictures because i forgot a couple of things in the first one. can you tell i'm new to the whole tutorial thing ;)) you'll need: canning jars (i used quart sized), pipe cleaners, hammer and a nail, felt, a glue gun and glue, and scissors. now that i'm thinking about it, you could probably use a big yogurt container or something if you don't want to use glass. 

step one: making the holes

supplies needed: jar lids, hammer and nail

take out the circle part of the lid and mark where you want your holes (you don't have to do this, i just like having it be somewhat symmetrical and i didn't want to just randomly hammer in the holes). use your hammer and nail (the nail can be small, the pipe cleaners will go through really small holes, which is good for this activity) to punch the holes where you marked. the nail goes through really easily. just a tap or two of the hammer. 

step two: covering the sharp parts

supplies needed: jar lid, felt, glue gun and glue, scissors, marker or pen

now, the underside of the holes are going to be sharp. if you are going to be opening and closing the lid for your child, you don't have to do this step, but if you want the opening and closing to be part of the activity, then i highly recommend covering it. this is one area where i think there may be a better way, but i couldn't think of one. take the metal disk out and trace it onto a piece of felt. using a marker or pen, mark each little hole on the felt through the lid. if you randomly punched the holes in the lid you'll need to mark the felt and the lid at the top so that you can line the holes back up properly when you glue the felt on. cut out the circle and then cut a little tiny 'x' on each dot.  line up the felt with the lid and use your hot glue gun to glue the felt on being care not to get glue on the holes on the lid or on the felt. i used hot glue because i've never had much luck with regular glue and felt. this really is way easier than it sounds. now, you have a lid that's safe for little fingers and  the pipe cleaners can still get through.

step three: cutting the pipe cleaners

supplies needed: pipe cleaners and scissors

you need to decide how you want to use this activity. if you only want to use it for sorting colors, then you only need to cut them down to the size you want.  you can totally skip this step if you want them to stick out the top of the container, the child can then just pull them out when he's done. i cut them down so that i could use the jars to store the pipe cleaners when they aren't being used. if you want the child to be able to sort by length as well as color, you need to decide how you want to divide the pipe cleaner. i was using quart sized jars, so cutting the pipe cleaner in half fit in the jar perfectly. this became my longest piece. i cut the pipe cleaner in quarters to make the middle length and in eighths to make the smallest piece. 

step four: play!

supplies needed: jars, pipe cleaners, and your child

my son wanted to sort colors first. he picked yellow, blue and green. we talked about how blue and yellow together make green. he had a lot of fun until he decided he'd rather take advantage of the gorgeous weather and run around outside instead of threading pipe cleaners. :)

ideas: ways of sorting

there are so many different ways of sorting. you can sort by size. you can sort by color in a bunch of different ways: any three colors, just primary colors, just secondary colors (i need to find purple pipe cleaners!), primary colors in one jar and secondary colors in another, two primary colors and the secondary color it makes, etc. and again, if you have a younger child who's not ready for sorting, just the threading of the pipe cleaners through the holes is a great little exercise for their fingers.

if this is something you are interested in making, i hope that this was an easy to follow tutorial. and again, please let me know if there's something i can do/write to make it easier to understand or follow. if you make one, i hope your little one gets hours of enjoyment out of it. learning while playing is the best. and this isn't the purpose of the activity, but it's one of those that a little can get completely engrossed in and give you, mom or dad or caretaker, a break or a peaceful minute to load the dishwasher. :)

let me know what you think!