It’s officially pool noodle season, y’all! Noodles are now at a Dollar Store near you, go get ’em while they last. I bought a few last week and decided to cut them up into “quiet blocks”. Over the last week my kids have invented lots of fun ways to play with their new (fancy) toys. Here are our current 5 favorite ways to play with pool noodle blocks.
How to Make Pool Noodle Blocks
You might be thinking, “What the heck are pool noodle blocks anyway?” Good question! Pool noodle blocks are made by cutting up a standard pool noodle into 2 inch segments. These lightweight, quiet blocks are an inexpensive to provide hours of fun and learning for babies and toddlers. Making them is super easy, here’s what you need:
- 3 or more pool noodles
- Ruler
- Kitchen knife
- Cutting board
- Sharpie marker
5 Ways to Use Pool Noodle Blocks
I started by cutting up 3 pool noodles. One pool noodle makes about 30- 2 in. blocks. Once you get your pool noodles cut up into blocks, here are 5 fun ways to play and learn with them.
1. Build with pool noodles
The simplest way to play with the blocks is to build! My 3 year old son started by building towers and my 1 year loved knocking them over! I love that these “blocks” are quiet and don’t make a loud crashing sound when the towers crash, like our wooden blocks.
2. Indoor soccer
Indoor soccer was actually invented my 3 year old son. He was done building towers and decided to start kicking the blocks around on the ground. At first he was kicking them all under the couch, so I gave him an empty box and called it a soccer goal!
3. Turn pool noodles into extra large beads
You can also use pool noodle blocks as extra large beads. To do this, I taped one end of a 4 foot rope I found in our garage and then tied one “bead” at the bottom of the rope to keep the beads from falling off. He liked making extra large necklaces and pretending it was a snake on the ground, but it’s also a fun way to talk about patterns too.
4. Basketball
Along the lines of indoor soccer, we also used the blocks to play an indoor version of basketball. I put out an empty trash can out and Maxwell went crazy throwing the blocks into the can and then, of course, dumping them out.
5. Pool noodle blocks as spelling tools
Last but not least, we’ve been working a lot on how to spell his name, so I added “MAX” with a sharpie to a few blocks and had him string them on the rope. You could also have kids match lower case and upper case letters or even string the alphabet.
My 1 and 3 year old are loving pool noodle blocks and honestly, my favorite way to let them play with them right now is to just hand them the cardboard box full of blocks and let them figure it out. They are inventing new ways to play with their foam “blocks” everyday!
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