DIY: Playful Learning | Tinkerer Box Blog

A small child's hand interacts with a homemade game. The game consists of a cardboard box with numerous holes, each containing an upright colored pencil. The child's hand places a coin between the pencils. The pencils vary in color, creating a vibrant and engaging visual. The game likely involves dropping the coin and seeing where it lands, perhaps associating a color or point value with each pencil. The background is a blurred light wooden surface.

Coin Ejection Game Table

This simple and fun educational game helps children develop hand-eye coordination, concentration, and reaction skills. Using a recycled Tinkerer box, you can create a coin ejection game table to challenge finger dexterity and skill.

Fishing Game

Create a fun educational fishing game using a recycled Tinkerer box. Children need to catch fish according to the task cards, which helps develop their observation skills, hand-eye coordination, and fine motor skills.

Two completed ladybug-shaped learning spinners are displayed on a light wood-grain table. The left spinner shows the letters Aa and a picture of an apple slice with the word Apple. The right spinner shows the number 1 and a picture of a gift with the number 1. These spinners are designed as educational tools for young children, likely for matching or alphabet and number recognition activities.

Alphabet Spinner

A fun and interactive way to learn letters through a creative craft activity!

A hand uses blue plastic tongs to place colorful pom-poms into white bottle caps glued to a piece of brown cardboard. The bottle caps and pom-poms form a caterpillar, with the first bottle cap having a drawn-on face. A small bowl of colorful pom-poms sits beside the caterpillar, and a drawing of a similar caterpillar is visible in the corner. This video demonstrates a simple children's activity promoting fine motor skills and color recognition.

Colourful Caterpillar

This is a simple yet educational early learning game for young children. The activity helps develop colour recognition, logical thinking skills, hand-eye coordination, and fine motor skills. The creation process is straightforward and uses common household materials.

A fish-shaped piece of brown cardboard rests on a light wood-grain table. The fish has a googly eye and black outlined fins. Numbered holes are punched around the fish's outline, and teal yarn has been laced through most of the holes, creating vertical stitches across the body. A small section at the top right, and the bottom edge remain unlaced. A light purple pipe cleaner is tied to the end of the yarn at the top. This image depicts a partially completed children's sewing or lacing activity.

Counting Fish Board

A math game that helps young children recognize numbers and numerical order while developing fine motor skills. You can adjust the numbers on the board based on your child's developmental stage to create an appropriate difficulty level.

Two hands hold a length of bright teal yarn against a light wood-grain background. A simple overhand knot has been tied in the yarn. A small, folded piece of light purple pipe cleaner is visible at the top left corner, suggesting it might be used later in the project. The image appears to depict a stage in a crafting activity.

Emotion Eggie Card

Ages 3-5 are crucial for children's emotional cognitive development. During this period, children begin to understand and express their own emotions while recognising others' feelings.

Two hands interact with a cardboard ice cream cone craft on a light wooden surface. The cardboard has a hand-drawn ice cream cone at the bottom and several small wooden clothespins clipped along its length. Each clothespin holds a colorful paper circle, representing a scoop of ice cream: yellow, pink, light blue, pink, light green, and light blue from top to bottom. To the right, a separate piece of white paper shows a similar ice cream cone design with painted circles in yellow, pink, blue, pink, green, and blue, likely serving as a model for the cardboard version. This image captures a crafting activity, possibly a learning game for color recognition or sequencing.

Ice Cream Pattern Game

A multi-skilled early learning activity that uses children's interest in ice cream to help them identify and categorise different colours, enhancing their colour recognition abilities.

A sheet of paper with handwriting practice lines lies on a light wood-grain table. The paper displays rows of cursive letters from A to F, both uppercase and lowercase, with dotted outlines for tracing. Beside the paper, a blue pencil with a patterned design and a pink rubber band are also on the table. This image suggests a setting for handwriting practice or a lesson in cursive writing.

Learn to Write

Help children maintain a proper pencil grip with just a rubber band! This simple trick helps beginning writers develop correct pencil-holding posture.

Two sheets of white paper, titled Rain Drop Dot: Letter R and Rain Drop Dot: Letter F, lie on a light wood-grain surface. Each sheet features a hand-drawn cloud at the top, containing the respective letter (R or F). Below each cloud, grids of letters are presented. All instances of R on the first sheet and F on the second sheet are marked with blue paint dots. This image depicts a completed letter recognition activity or game for children.

Letter Raindrop

Help children maintain a proper pencil grip with just a rubber band! This simple trick helps beginning writers develop correct pencil-holding posture.

Against a plain white background stands a finished Cookie Monster figure made from cardboard. Painted blue, the Cookie Monster has a slit for a mouth, where a small portion of a chocolate chip cookie is visible. The figure's belly has a circular window covered with clear plastic, revealing more chocolate chip cookies inside. This appears to be a completed cardboard Cookie Monster feeding toy or game.

Number Cookies

Learning numbers isn't always easy for children, so you need fun methods to help them learn and remember. This excellent mathematical introduction game helps young children recognise numbers up to 10 and learn to sequence them.

Two hands gently hold a clear plastic bag filled with pumpkin-coloured material, possibly pumpkin puree or a similar substance. Black marker pen details create a playful jack-o'-lantern face on the bag, and small black objects, possibly plastic spiders, are visible within. The overall effect is a fun, slightly spooky, and visually appealing Halloween-themed sensory item. The image is bright and well-lit, highlighting the playful design.

Create Your Own Spooky Fun: Easy Paper Bat and Pumpkin Crafts!

What's inside a pumpkin? Children will explore the soft texture of pumpkin pulp with their fingers and discover little surprises hidden within.

A clear plastic bag filled with mixed rice grains and edged with orange tape sits on a light wood-grain surface. The number 2 is clearly traced into the rice, revealing the lighter surface below. This image likely demonstrates a sensory activity or learning tool using a rice-filled bag for tracing letters or numbers.

Sprinkle Sensory Bag

A fun and creative sensory activity that's super easy to prepare! Children can touch, press, and squeeze to explore different sensations. It can also be used for writing practice, helping develop fine motor skills, concentration, imagination, and other important early skills.

Two hands interact with a small white paper cup containing small, colorful pieces of cut paper on a light wood-grain surface. The cup is partially wrapped with orange tape near the bottom. One hand holds the cup while the other picks up some of the colorful paper pieces, suggesting they are being added or arranged. The colors of the paper pieces are pastel pink, blue, and yellow. This image likely depicts a step in a craft activity.

Paper Cup Party Popper

Want to make your party more exciting? We'll create a simple yet surprising paper cup party popper! They're incredibly easy to make using common household materials.