I got this idea from the 1+1+1=1 Tot Trays site. You punch a few holes in an empty cereal box and then provide some dry pasta for your toddler to punch through the holes. It was super easy and Sweat Pea loved it. She played with it for 30 minutes before wanting to move on to a new activity.
Notes from the Trenches: I taped the top of the Cheerio’s box closed with packing tape to give it more support, which then made retrieving the used pasta more difficult. I don’t think I’ll be able to reuse the cereal box more than a few times before having to create a new one. However, I think the box would have collapsed when she pushed the pasta through otherwise. I tried both penne and elbow macoroni. The penne worked much better for her. She couldn’t maneuver the elbow macoroni to get the ‘curve’ into the box and quickly wanted to go back to the penne.
Rating: The Cereal Punch Board gets 4/4 stars (Easy to set up, Frugal to do, Fun for Sweet Pea, and can be done mostly Independent from mom).
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This was great. N (21 months), wasn’t too convinced the first time, but I left it on his shelves and came in the next day to find him sitting at his table carefully posting pasta. We don’t get anthing like 30 mins out of it, but a good 10, which is pretty impressive for N!
Before I taped the box shut, I cut a small hole flush with the base and corner of the box at one end so that N can pour out the pasta when he has posted them all.
That cereal board was one of our all time best activities. I love your idea of cutting a hole in the corner so the tot can pour the pasta back out. I always ended up tearing the tape off the box so Sweet Pea could start over.
I did this activity with my little guy (25 months). I probably should have tried this a couple of months ago – I think it would have been a little more challenging for him then. At 25 months, he automatically knew to turn the penne vertically to fit it in the holes. That said, he had fun with it. He surprised me by asking to do it again the next night…
I’m so glad that your guy enjoyed this and wanted to do it more than once!
I love this idea!!! My 19 month boy is loving it as I type… I don’t think I’d be ABLE to type, otherwise :)!!!
This was one of our all time favorites too! Glad your boy likes it. 🙂
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