You know that little stash of toilet paper rolls you keep meaning to recycle? Don’t. Not yet. These 30+ easy toilet paper roll crafts for kids turn that simple cardboard tube into hours of creativity, building, pretending, and problem-solving.
Toilet paper roll crafts are one of my favorite low-prep wins. They’re inexpensive, accessible, and somehow feel brand new every single time. A tube becomes a rocket ship. Then a bunny. Then a marble run. Then something you didn’t even see coming. That’s the beauty of open-ended crafting—kids take the lead, and the materials just support their ideas.
What makes cardboard tube crafts especially great is how much learning sneaks in. Kids practice cutting, gluing, taping, stacking, balancing, and experimenting. They’re strengthening fine motor skills, building spatial awareness, and working through creative challenges without it feeling like a lesson. It just feels like fun.
This list is packed with simple, doable toilet paper roll crafts that work for toddlers, preschoolers, and early elementary kids. Some are quick five-minute projects. Others turn into bigger building challenges. All of them use basic supplies you probably already have at home.
So before you toss those rolls in the recycling bin, save them. Your next easy afternoon activity might already be sitting on your bathroom counter.
Toilet Paper Roll Crafts For Kids
1. Cardboard Tube Flowers
Transform simple cardboard tubes into bright, cheerful flowers using paint and a little imagination. This easy craft builds fine motor skills and makes a sweet spring decoration kids feel proud displaying.
2. Cardboard Butterfly Craft
Turn cardboard tubes into adorable heart-shaped butterflies with simple folding and paint, creating a super sweet craft that builds fine motor skills and encourages colorful, creative expression.
3. Cardboard Marble Run Craft
Build a DIY marble run using taped cardboard tubes and watch physics come alive. Kids experiment with angles, speed, and problem-solving while staying completely engaged.
4. Cardboard Tube Microphone Craft
This pretend-play microphone is a quick win that sparks singing, performing, and confidence-building—all from a recycled tube and a little decorating.
5. Wrist Bird Craft
Create wearable bird friends from cardboard tubes that double as puppets, encouraging storytelling, creativity, and imaginative play in one easy afternoon activity.
6. Cardboard Tube Snake Craft
Cut, paint, and decorate a wiggly snake craft that stretches across the table. It’s simple, hands-on, and surprisingly satisfying to make.
7. Cardboard Tube Penguin Craft
Turn tubes into adorable penguins with paper wings and googly eyes—perfect for winter crafts and fine motor practice.
8. Rainbow Dragon Craft
This colorful dragon uses layered paper and tubes to create a bold, eye-catching craft kids love building and displaying.
10. DIY Cardboard Tube Kazoo Craft
Make music from recycled materials with this easy kazoo craft that doubles as a fun sound experiment.
11. Paper Towel Roll Rocket Ship Craft
Blast off into space with a decorated rocket ship tube craft that inspires imaginative play and STEM conversations.
12. Toilet Paper Roll Easter Bunny Craft
These sweet bunny tubes are quick to assemble and perfect for Easter baskets or springtime crafting.
13.
Sensory Play with Cardboard Tubes
14. Rainbow Rice Maze Run Sensory Bin
Create a colorful maze using cardboard tubes and rainbow-dyed rice, then invite kids to scoop, pour, and guide rice through twisting paths while exploring problem-solving, cause-and-effect, and fine motor control.
15. Tubes and Rice
Add cardboard tubes of different lengths to a simple rice bin and watch kids experiment with pouring, filling, and dumping as they discover how materials move through space and build coordination naturally.
16. Caps and Rices Sensory Bin
Pair plastic bottle caps with rice and cardboard tubes to create an engaging sensory station where kids scoop, sort, count, and drop, building early math awareness and strengthening small hand muscles.
17. Tubes and Caps
Combine cardboard tubes and assorted caps for a simple drop-and-collect activity that encourages focus, coordination, and experimentation as children explore how different sizes move through narrow openings.
18. Paper Towel Roll Domino Challenge
Stand paper towel rolls upright like dominoes and challenge kids to predict, push, and observe what happens next, building early STEM thinking through hands-on, repeatable cause-and-effect play.
19. Magnetic Tubes
Add small magnets to cardboard tubes and invite kids to explore attraction, repulsion, and balance while building structures that stick together in surprising and creative ways.
20. Sticky Wall Pom Pom Drop
Tape cardboard tubes vertically to a wall and let kids drop pom poms through from different heights, strengthening shoulder stability and hand control while exploring gravity in a playful way.
21. Cardboard Tubes Sticky Wall
Create a larger wall maze using taped tubes and encourage kids to redesign paths, test angles, and problem-solve as they experiment with dropping objects through shifting routes.
22. The Drop Anything Sensory Bin
Fill a bin with assorted household objects and encourage kids to test what fits through tubes, exploring size comparison, prediction skills, and hands-on experimentation in a simple, open-ended setup.
Paper Roll Activities
23. Tube Pattern Matching
Label tubes with colors or patterns and invite children to match objects accordingly, strengthening visual discrimination, early math concepts, and sustained concentration through active play.
24. Alphabet Drop
Label each tube with a letter and challenge kids to drop matching objects or letter cards through, reinforcing early literacy skills in a playful, movement-based format.
25. Feed the Caterpillars
Create caterpillar-themed tunnels labeled with letters and invite children to feed them matching letter cards, combining imaginative play with alphabet recognition practice.
26. ABC Toilet Paper Tunnels
Create caterpillar-themed tunnels labeled with letters and invite children to feed them matching letter cards, combining imaginative play with alphabet recognition practice.
27. Cardboard Tube Yarn Threading
Cut small holes into cardboard tubes and let kids thread yarn through, supporting bilateral coordination and careful hand control in a calming, focused activity.
28. Button Match
Label tubes with numbers or colors and challenge kids to sort and drop matching buttons inside, strengthening sorting, counting, and visual recognition skills.
29. Pouch Lid Drop
Offer different-sized pouch lids and tubes and encourage kids to test which combinations fit, building problem-solving skills through repeated experimentation.
30. Tube Counting
Write numbers on tubes and invite children to count and drop the correct number of small objects inside, combining hands-on play with early math understanding.
Play2Learn Toddler & Preschool Programs for Curious Toddlers
There is no limit to your toddler’s energy and curiosity. That energy and curiosity although a joy can be challenging at times. Their interest in just about everything around them is what makes them great learners. One and two year olds can soak up so much just from their senses!
But as a teacher or parent that thirst for learning can be exhausting. That is why I created this toddler and preschooler program. To help you get the most out of this time with your curious toddler without having to come up with creative ways to play and interact with them.
Play2Learn for Toddlers includes 20 Units for toddlers. Each 2-week toddler unit has 20 super easy to set up and engaging activities for toddlers 18 months to 3 years.
Play2Learn Preschool which includes 20 Units for preschoolers. Each 2-week preschoolers unit has 20 unique and easy to set up and engaging activities for preschoolers 3 years to 5 years. That’s over 800 learning activities for your toddler and preschooler at your fingertips! So many ideas you and your child will never be bored again!
These toddler and preschool lesson plans and activities will definitely keep you and your toddler and preschooler busy playing and learning!
Click here for more information: Play2Learn
Book: Exciting Sensory Bins for Curious Kids
Did you know I wrote a book of sensory bins? Click here for more information Exciting Sensory Bin for Curious Kids. Or grab your copy at Amazon.
Boring afternoons are made exciting with awesome animal-based bins, like Salty Shark Bay or Yarn Farm. Pretend play bins like Birthday Cake Sensory Play or Bubble Tea Party encourage creativity and imagination. And your kids will have so much fun they won’t even know they’re getting smarter with STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and math) activities like Sink or Float Soup, Magnetic Letter Hunt or Ice Cream Scoop and Count.
Designed for toddlers 18 months and up.
Book: Super STEAM Activity Book for Kids
Learning all about science, technology, engineering, art, and math sets kids up for scholastic success―and it can be so much fun! Watch kids enjoy building STEAM skills as they color friendly fish, help water find its way to tree roots, solve math problems with mazes, and more.
Find out more and grab your copy here.
Designed for preschoolers 3 years old and up.
Book: Big Book of Riddles for Kids
Riddle me this: What’s an exciting way to practice critical thinking while having a blast? The Big Riddle Book for Kids, of course! From hilarious puns to tough brain teasers, kids can build problem-solving skills with hundreds of riddles tha. t show them how to think outside the box.
- 350 riddles for kids—Have hours of fun with riddles, puns and jokes, and math and logic puzzles that’ll get their wheels turning!
- Level up their skills—Riddles get trickier as kids progress through the book, challenging them as they get better at solving puzzles!
- Double-check their work—Kids can check their answers in the back of the book with a handy answer key.
Help children expand their minds while having fun with this puzzle book for kids!
Designed for kids ages 6 years old and up.
TV Show: Curious Crafting
I’m so excited to share my crafting TV show Curious Crafting which launched in July 2022 on TVOkids and TVOkids YouTube! Season 2 aired in August 2023! My show was also nominated in 2023 for Best Live Action Preschool Series by the Youth Media Alliance Awards of Excellence.
Curious Crafting Season 1 is also now airing in Australia on ABC! Watch it here!
Set in the ultimate crafting space, Curious Crafting is a short form pre-school age series about the joy of making crafts. I lead a rotating cast of adorable little preschoolers (including my own) making magic out of common household objects.
In each episode we transform recycled items into magical crafts like a milk carton school bus, paper bag puppet or cotton pad turtle. The crafters learn and laugh their way through each activity while demonstrating what their young imaginations can create.
Curious Crafting shares the adventure and joy of making art with takeaway lessons for creating crafts at home.
This show designed for toddlers and preschoolers 2.5 years old and up.
