5 household items that make great toys

With its many shapes and sizes and even colours, pasta is a fantastic multi-use toy. You can thread it through string for beads, glue it onto drawings or arrange it into artistic masterpieces. Alphabet letters or rice make great 'gravel' for dump trucks to shovel and pick up, spaghetti can be broken up into different sizes. Colour rice or pasta by soaking it in food colouring and leaving it to dry on a tray in a low oven or the sun.

When you find yourself collecting these, congratulate yourself on becoming one of those mothers! They make great legs and snout for a papier mache pig (made from a balloon). Cellotape lots together to make one long snake. They can be a megaphone, binoculars, decorated and strung together to make a chunky necklace or a snake. Draw on them to make trees or people with wool or string hair. Or cut in half and stick together to make a marble rolling track.

Shoe box lids are perfect for little projects to be kept on, as a tray for carrying things, or for Lego or Playdough projects. Tissue boxes are great for babies to post pegs into or pull things out of. Cut off the top and you have a toy car or bus or a doll’s bed or a spare room for the dolls’ house. Shoe boxes are also ideal for separating socks and knickers inside drawers (that one's for mum and dad!)

Kids often go through a phase or two where every toy must be tied up with string and dragged around. Or just tied up. String can make a cool mini flying fox for toys – attach one end to something high-ish (a heavy drawer handle, a table leg) and the other end to something lower down and keep it taut. Tie a toy’s arms together above its head and (make sure you put the flying fox string between them first) and send toy flying! Punch a hole in the end of two tin cans and thread string through them to make a basic "telephone"(pictured). String’s great for laying on the ground and making an island or for making ‘stepping stones’ in a continuous figure of eight to try and walk in. Cut it up and glue it to paper to make patterns (you could use these to make dry rubbings too). String makes great hair for the wooden spoons or a sock puppet, is ideal for stringing beads or dried pasta on, and for learning to plait or tie knots or bows with…the possibilities are endless!

Fill screwtop bottles halfway with water and glitter, or sand or a couple of spoonfuls of hundreds and thousands to make an interesting toy when tipped or shaken for baby. Fill water bottles with soap and water for squirting each other outside while, ideally washing the car. Fill hand-pump bottles with water and get kids to fill cups, or fill spray bottles with water and get them spraying your plants, washing the windows (outside) or the car. A spray of water on  chalk drawings washes them away. Decorated and half filled with water, screwtop bottles make great bowling pins or skittles too (pictured)!