Pipe Cleaner Toddler Activity

Thought I'd branch out and write about something other than food. We just battled the stomach flu in our house so some quiet time activities were in order.
I am always amazed by how long a toddler can concentrate on the most mundane task if it interests them. We had some fun with pipe cleaners from Family Dollar, a strainer from our kitchen, a tube from some paper towels, and an old oatmeal container. This lasted a whopping hour which I'm fairly certain counts as 4 hours in toddler time. We started out sticking pipe cleaners into the upside down strainer. She caught on pretty quickly that gripping the pipe cleaner at the bottom yielded better control when aiming. Afterwards, we cut a small hole in the lid of an oatmeal container and stuck all of the pipe cleaners in one by one. Then we put the pipe cleaners through a tube so we could watch them fall out the bottom. Last, I thread pipe cleaners through the strainer and had them pull them out the sides by naming the color I wanted.