Dear Reader,
My preschooler uses pony beads a lot in therapy to help her build strength in her hand muscles, increase hand-eye coordination, and to work on her pincer grasp (I’ve talked lots about the pincer grasp). It helps that she likes beads, I’m sure. She also loooooves Halloween. So, since it’s October, most of our activities will be tied to Halloween! Play to their interests, haha!
There was just one problem, although I have Orange beads, and orange pipe cleaners, they’re buried in storage while my basement is under construction (for-ev-er). I decided to give Joann online ordering and curbside pickup a try. Not my favorite, I’m not gonna lie! first of all, operator error, our pipe cleaners are only half sized! I mean, I should have looked closer, I guess, but, eh. They were bright colors! The orange beads were perfect, though. And now I have a ton of them.
I set up a little spider web-like-thing for her to string beads onto, by folding the pipe cleaners in half and wrapping them around each other for the smaller one and just making little loops for the bigger one. I’ve gotta say, I kinda prefer the shorter pipe cleaner but creating loops at the end so it is the size of a full-length pipe cleaner. So I guess operator error worked out in my favor. Below is a picture of the bigger one. I have set up 3, because she kept wanting to make more!
After that, I handed it to her and let her add beads! She added them all the way to the very end, so I had to take a few off, but obviously that’s not that difficult to do. You want to leave about an inch for the end. which is hard on the smaller pumpkin (hence why I recommend the larger size, but most of you wont buy the wrong sized pipe cleaner, anyway, so the recommendation is not important. You’ll just have to fold them around each other instead of looping them).
After they’ve added all the beads they want (and after you remove some, if necessary, to get enough room), twist and wrap the pipe cleaners together and then wrap a green pipe cleaner around the combined bundle. Take another pipe cleaner and twist it into curly-q’s and add it to your pumpkin.
This pumpkin is currently sitting on my piano (up high, because the toddlers like the bright colors and instinctively know it’s something they’re not supposed to have, so they kept trying to get it when it was lower, and I enjoy looking up at it. Maybe it’s the bright colors, maybe it’s how proud my daughter is of being good at stringing beads. Or maybe it’s because although I love Halloween almost as much as my preschooler, I just don’t have the time or the space to set up all the Halloween decorations this year, so a little pumpkin (and his itty bitty companion) are are going to have to count this year.
