Magnetic pipecleaner bottle

Here is another 2 minute boredom buster..... Mister 2 cut up all our pipe cleaners into (approx) 1 cm pieces and placed them into a bottle.Its best if you use the longest bottle you have so they can be moved around.

Use a magnetic wand if you have one, if not any other strong magnet should work-try a Thomas train, fridge magnet or similar. The pipe cleaners will follow your magnet around. This is a very relaxing activity that can be used for calming down after a meltdown or keep it in the car for road trip activities. Older children may like to play the magnetic/non magnetic game as posted in our magnetic sensory tub post.

Magnetic sensory tub

I had been searching for magnetic wands forever, as i wanted to do a magnetic sensory tub but was sick of using the fishing magnetic rods so when i found CELFkids supplied them i was very excited and for only $4 a wand-Bargain!
http://www.celfkids.com/default.html
We used bird seed as our sensory material, its so relaxing digging your hands into seeds and although it does make a big mess its fine for young children as its harmless to eat.
I gathered a collection of items from around the house, some magnetic and some not then buried them all into the seed.

I wrote on two pieces of paper "magnetic" and "not magnetic" and the kids used their new magnetic wands to search for the buried treasure and categorise them.

Mason enjoying the soothing seeds. Both kids ended up in the tub feet and all and seeds were everywhere but it was a great activity-maybe outside next time!

Baking tray magnets

Are you magnets on the fridge getting ignored? Grab one of your baking trays out and you will be amazed at the sudden excitement of a 'new' activity!