Egg Cartons and Pipe Cleaners

Last Friday, Emilie and I made some craft out of an old egg carton. Egg cartons are, I believe, one of the most essential “junk” items in a craft box!! There are so many things you can create from one egg carton if you have a little imagination! Just as well eggs are so yummy (also something you can create many things from and edible things too – even better!)

Although I did most of the imagining with our craft session! Em is a little bit too young to come up with her own creations just yet, but she still had plenty of fun! She LOVES playing with pipe cleaners (another essential in craft boxes!) and she loved playing with our creations once we were finished making.

What we used:
6pack egg carton
Pipe cleaners
Sticky tape
Blue texta
Red texta
Imagination!

What we created:

GOOGLY GLASSES
I cut out the deep round egg cup parts of the carton, 4 in total. Using a cake skewer I poked a hole in the central part of the cup, then cut a medium sized circle in each one. Then I poked two holes on opposite sides of the cup in each. We threaded a pipe cleaner through one of each hole and made the arms of the glasses. Then I connected two cups together with a pipe cleaner through the remaining holes:

Emilie had fun putting on and taking off her googly glasses and enjoyed looking at herself in front of the mirror!


What do I think this activity provoked in Emilie’s development?


- Even though she is too little to use scissors, she was watching intently as I cut out the egg carton components. I made sure to tell her very seriously that scissors were very sharp and make an ouchie if you touch them.

- Threading the pipe cleaner through the little holes refines her dexterity skills and her understanding of making something go through a hole to the other side.


- Putting on and taking of the glasses helps train her awareness of her own body, in particular her face and eyes. She can see that my googly glasses cover my eyes and make my face look different, and her googly glasses cover her eyes, and makes what she sees around her different!

FINGER PUPPETS
Using the triangular pointy parts of the egg carton (the parts that separate the eggs), I taped pipe cleaners to the top point (I cut the pipe cleaners into shorter sections). This was the finger puppets’ hair. We had a blonde puppet and a red-head puppet! Then all that was left to do was to draw two blue eyes and a red lipstick mouth onto each puppet. Emilie had HEAPS of fun with the little people. She made them kiss each other, she kissed them and made me and Paul kiss them too LOL:

When we were done she played with a few other pipe cleaner people that we had made on another day. Here she is making them kiss each other!

What do I think this activity provokes in Emilie’s development?

- Emilie is starting to enjoy games that involve role play. Once she could recognise the puppets as “little people” she was free to explore a role play in what she believes people can do and what people like to do. The fact that she was making the puppets kiss indicates to me that she is in touch with her emotional side, in particular love (hence the kissing LOL).

- This also refines her dexterity skills, learning how to use certain digits for different things, making a fist with two fingers raised, inserting her fingers into the puppets etc.