Pipe cleners are a popular craft item in our house. They are so good for engaging different and creative craft activities, they are really helpful for developing motor skills and there are endless fun activity opportunities with them.

Today we made pipe cleaner animals using rocks. It was an activity inspired by our neighborhood full of rocks.
How to make pipe cleaner animals using rocks
You will need:
- Rocks of different sizes and shapes. Obviously, smaller ones work better since you don't have to use that much of pipe cleaners.
- Pipe cleaner of many different colors
- Scissors
Here is how we did it:
Extra Tips for making Pipe cleaner animals
It is challenging for the little hands to wrap a pipe cleaner around a small rock, but it's worth it and the kids seem to like it.
Take a rock and ask your child what might it look like. What does it remind them of. Ask is it any sort of animal or a plant? Wait until they make their own desicion of what they want to make out of that rock.
Pick a color and get a pipe cleaner. Use rock as a main body and pipe cleaner as additions such legs, hands, tails, ears and etc.
First, measure the rock's 'body' by wrapping around with pipe cleaner.
After you measured, you can drop the rock out, so you can keep working on other parts of the pipe cleaner animal. After you are done, insert the rock back to place.
Use markers to draw eyes, nose, mouth, hair or anything you want on the rock to fisnish your pipe cleaner animals.
Optional. You can use glue to secure the pipe cleaner to the rock. It should be done together with the adult.
We made these pipe cleaner animals: Jumpy Froggy, Sneaky Snake Speedy Fish, Colorful Butterfly, Sneaky mouse and Mr. Fuzzy a guy who look after all the animals.
Check out what other fun activities we did with rocks:
- We made car track toys for a sand box from rocks
- We colored rocks and turned them into playful toy figurines