Recycled Egg Carton Garden Games
This post may contain affiliate links.
Pinching small objects is great for working on fine motor skills, so when I saw this cute carrot harvest idea on Powerful Mothering. I immediately thought it would be perfect for some of the kids that I work with. I wanted to give it more of a purpose for the different aged kids that I see, so I made two different games out of it.
For both of the games you turn the egg carton upside down and poke a small hole in each of the egg spots. You need to use an 18 egg size carton, or larger. I used a pencil to poke the hole. The hole needs to be the right size for pipe cleaner to slide into.
The first game is a color matching memory game. I cut two lengths of about an ich or a little shorter of six different colors of pipe cleaner. I then twisted green pipe cleaner on to the top of each piece of color, and shaped them into two leaves. I made sure that the bottom colors weren’t showing and that the green top was large enough to not slip into the hole in the egg carton.
Then you can randomly place the color ends into the middle twelve holes of the egg carton. This makes it like different colors of vegetables that need to be pulled up from the ground. The kids can pull up two vegetables, and see if they match. If they don’t, they have to put them back and then the next child gets a turn. If they do match, then they get to keep their matching vegetables. The winner is the person with the most matching vegetables at the end of the game.
The second game uses two different colors of game pieces, and I used blue and orange. The game pieces are made the same way, but with only one color twisted around. To play the game, you use the middle 12 holes. Two players take turns putting one of their colors into a hole. The objective is to make 4 in a row, so you have to also block your opponent. The game ends when one player gets four of his color in a row.
What other games could you play with these tools?
Materials:
• 18 pack egg carton
• multiple colors of pipe cleaner
Skills:
• Fine Motor
• Visual perception
