I often browse through Pinterest looking for various activities to keep our toddler occupied throughout the day. As I find ideas, I think to myself, “I can do this. I can go to the dollar store and find items to come up with a project of my own.”

A short visit to the Dollar Tree near us and low and behold, I found two great items to create a quiet project to keep our toddler occupied… or so I thought.

A small storage container with compartments and a bag of colorful pom poms = color sorting activity. I hot glued a piece of pom pom to the bottom of each compartment and added a few more pom poms of the matching color to each. I thought it would be a success.

This sorting activity has been our nemesis the past few days. The wonderful itty bitty pieces of colorful fuzz seemed to multiply and explode onto our carpet each day.  They have become awesome pretend food.  We finally gave up trying to teach our toddler and decided to just join in the fun and pretend to eat the little colorful pieces of pretend pie, tea, cake or whatever our daughter cooks up.

I hope maybe someone can at least use this as an idea for a project of their own. I do have to admit, the pom poms have been a great, quiet tool and quite a hit at keeping my daughter occupied for long periods of time. I think the textures and the colors are what appeal to her. Perhaps someday she’ll want to actually sort them or maybe I’ll find another learning project to create with these fun, mini, fuzzy spheres. In the meantime, we’ll just enjoy the happiness they bring to our little girl.