A pack of giant multi-coloured pipe cleaners is IMO a superb diversion for 4 year old

[FrannyandZooey]

I expect someone will come on and say he will have his eye out in a minute, but he is having a lovely time and the results are quite whimsically attractive.

These ones came in one of those awful craft packs and had been sitting at the back of the cupboard for ages. I don't know how much they cost but I am guessing they were worth every penny. I am planning to unravel half of the creations tonight and put them back in the packet so he can do it again tomorrow.

tbh a 50p packet of white ones from the fag kiosk in Tesco is pretty good too

great in-car diversion

Nice one! I've still got the remnants of my own (now about 25 years old!) My dcs enjoy them a lot too. If you have an old-fashioned clothes peg you can make a very cool doll with them. Dd2 made a whole farm once.

you will have his eye out in a minute!!!!

fgs

I am sorry to say I think my ones are superior MrsB

some are gold

so far he has made a butterfly, a dog's lead, a gun , and a thermometer

olive (nice to see you)

MrsB lets hers do it IN THE CAR

SK we are clothes peg city. How do you do the doll thing?

my great-uncle used to smoke a pipe and kept all children in thrall by offering us pipe cleaneres to play with.

I always go the Pound Shop when I venture to my local dump town and they usually have pots of craft stuff with pom poms and pipe cleaners in

dd1 makes jewellery with hers

also, get some cardboard, draw on a butterfly, poke holes in with a pencil and get them to 'sew' the pipecleaners through to make the shape

Well if it's the old-fashioned sort with a knob at the top and a long slit (whoops, I was NOT being rude...) you twist two different coloured pipecleaners together for arms, insert it into the top of the slit and twist it round the body once. Gosh, I should write for dirty mags. Then you can make nifty dresses and suchlike with scraps of material or tissues and draw or paint a face. Wool for hair. Kept dd3 busy for hours, she made Milly Molly Mandy and Billy Blunt and they never shut up until they found their way to Dublin in my step-dad's suitcase by accident.

My dts love to to play with drinking straws.

peg dolls
blardy fab

may I also recommend wooden spoons?

our chinese supermarket place has them for 15p each, then they paint faces on, felt tip, glue wool on for hair etc

Asda do bags of them for nowt

(although then you have to suffer the puppet show and drag out your sofa so they can hide behind it and clap and generally get involved)

(straws - ikea - £1 for 200 or sommat)

yes, mine like drinking straws

Tesco's have glittery ones, cue histeria in Olive house

Do you remember that odd film, Alice Through The Looking Glass?

Ds1 makes things just like the Wheelies .

[brain meltdown]
surely that was Return to Oz?

have you a branch of The Works?
othwrise lots online