These 30 creative and fun popsicle stick crafts & activities are enough to keep your kiddos busy for a whole month!

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Popsicle sticks have got to be one of the most basic, unassuming craft materials on the planet, but they offer a WORLD of possibilities where kids are concerned.

When Little Man was a year old or so, I bought a giant box of jumbo craft sticks (similar to these). Almost four years later, our stash is still going strong. We’ve used them for all sorts of preschool activities, busy bags, and creative play. I also have a bunch of normal-sized colorful popsicle sticks that I bought at the dollar store (here’s what they look like, for reference). I bought them last year to do some color sorting activities around St. Patrick’s Day. Later, I turned them into our favorite preschool game: Alphabet Kaboom! (See below).

We’ve gotten so much mileage out of our popsicle sticks that I thought it would be fun to put together a list of fun popsicle stick crafts and activities for your inspiration.

P.S. – I thought I had some good ideas for you when I started writing this post, but I have since found and tested out tons of awesome ideas. I’m SO excited to finally share the best of the best with you!

Here it is…

The ULTIMATE list of super-fun popsicle stick crafts and activities for kids

Arts & Crafts

1. Create personalized accessories…popsicle stick bracelets (Inspiration Made Simple). I love that this is both decorative and it offers a great lesson in how heat & water affect wood.
2. Why buy toys? Make your own airplane (Hot DIY Tutorial). it’s the perfect size for flying around the house.
3. Design your own flying popsicle stick superhero (Glued to My Crafts). P.S. – She has a bunch of simple & fun popsicle creations on her site.
4. I love these cute creature bookmarks (Meaningful Mama). As a kid, I LOVED having special bookmarks to keep my place in my favorite books. Okay, I just love anything having to do with reading.
5. Trace your popsicle sticks to create colorful geometry art (Craftwhack).
6. Make an adorable turtle (Pink Stripey Socks) using a traditional “God’s Eye” weaving techinique…great for developing fine motor skills.

STEM exploration

7. Get medieval by making your own table top catapult. Set out some targets or buckets, give them a bowl of pom poms, and this will keep your kids busy for a long time!
8. Make a mini bow & arrow set (All for the Boys), and imagine you’re Robin Hood.
9. Learn how to make an exploding chain reaction (Frugal Fun 4 Boys). This project would have serious wow factor for my little guys!
10. Make a sea-worthy raft (All Free Kids Crafts). For older kids, you could experiment with which designs can hold more weight, how to propel your vessel, etc.
11. On a smaller explosive scale, make an exploding boomerang and have a family battle (I Can Teach My Child). Cool mom points!
12. Make a working harmonica (Housing a Forest). How awesome is that?! Technically it’s more of a kazoo, but it looks like a harmonica, so call it whatever you want.
13. Remember that old game Labyrinth? You can make your own marble maze (Frugal Fun 4 Boys) with popsicle sticks and an old shoe box lid.
14. Teach your kids about gravity with this fun experiment (Rookie Parenting).

Learning games

15. All you need is popsicle sticks, a marker, and a container of some kind to play our family’s FAVORITE learning game (and one of the most popular posts on The Many Little Joys): Alphabet Kaboom. Bonus…it can be adapted to learn just about anything.
16. Recycle an old cardboard box to create this simple fine motor letter matching game for preschoolers (Schooltime Snippets).
17. Make your own dominoes (Pink Stripey Socks) to practice matching colors, numbers, patterns, etc. Or try this version (Nuture Store), which helps kids practice rhyming!
18. Use them to help your child practice making shapes (Moms Have Questions Too). Little Man and I had a great time adapting this activity to practice letters–trying to figure out how to make as many letters as possible with only straight lines.
19. We love puzzles! These simple sight word puzzles (And Next Comes L) are perfect for my preschooler.
20. Create a kid-friendly flower garden (Buggy & Buddy), and kick it up a notch by adding a learning game/exploration component.
21. Get matchy matchy with an easy-to-prep numbers matching game (Education.com).
22. Make a stop sign for the classic game Red Light/Green Light and play with your kiddos.
23. You can even learn the days of the week (Teach Me Mommy).

Play time & busy bag activities

24. These velcro sticks (This Little Home of Mine) are a fun way to create and experiment. And there is something so satisfying about that scratchy sound.
25. These awesome free printable pattern cards (Playdough to Plato) are a great way to help kids practice patterns.
26. For little hands, these touch and feel sensory sticks (The Baby Bump Diaries) would be fun–and portable!
27. Challenge kids with a colors & patterns busy bag for preschoolers (Raising Little Superheroes).
28. I know my boys would LOVE these DIY road signs (Doodles & Jots) to use with their cars & trains.
29. This popsicle stick matching game (The Relaxed Homeschool) is perfect! They are popsicle sticks, after all.
30. Popsicle stick puzzles (Skip to My Lou) are perfect for taking on the go to keep kids occupied in restaurants, church, etc. We have some that have pictures cut from magazines and photos of our family, too.

There you have it! 30 awesome popsicle stick crafts and activities to keep your kiddos busy and learning.

Did I forget any of your favorite ways to play with popsicle sticks? Do tell!