For the lucky ones who avoid symptoms or the hospital, our recollections of the COVID-19 pandemic will probably revolve around the extraordinary lengths we went to in order to entertain ourselves while “sheltering in place”—a kind term for what feels like house arrest as we attempt to slow the spread of the highly-transmissible novel coronavirus.

No one feels the pinch of home-based amusement more than parents of young children. Cut off from school, parks, playmates, and other developmental tools that double as relief valves for mom and dad, energetic children are practically climbing the walls, unable in their less patient moods to understand why everything has changed so much. If you have small children, you are probably scrounging the closets and drawers for ways to both distract your children and preserve your sanity.

One of the things you might find in abundant supply in those closets and drawers is socks. Socks make an ideal medium for crafts. You probably have orphan socks whose partners disappeared in the drier or developed holes and had to be trashed, and now the sock just takes up space in the bureau, useless. What’s more, many people keep their socks way too long, until the color is faded, the elastic blown, the soles worn down next to nothing.

These cast-off socks can have a second life as toys and crafts for your kids, and you can create from the bottom of the hamper a welcome activity to pass the days until school starts up again and we all get out of quarantine. Here are five sock craft ideas to try if you’re stuck at home with kids.

1. Sock Puppets

Sock puppets can be a source of fun for hours, both in the making and the playing. It’s a perfect activity for multiple children. Each child can make one or more puppets and perform puppet shows with each other. The opportunities for imagination are endless. Best of all, in your craft drawers and bins you probably have all the materials you need to create a whole puppet cast.

Materials:

• A sock
• Kids Scissors
• Cardboard
• Buttons
• Yarn
• Glue

First, cut a slit in the toe of the sock to serve as the puppet’s mouth. When you spread the hole open, it should form a vertical oval.

Cut an oval out of the cardboard in roughly the shape of the oval-shaped hole. Fold the oval in half along the short axis. This is the inside of your puppet’s mouth. Pink is a perfect color, but it’s a sock monster–it can have any color mouth you’d like it to have!

Glue the oval unto the hole created in the mouth-hole of the sock puppet. If you have red cardboard, you can cut out a tongue and glue it here.

Glue yarn on the head for hair; buttons above the mouth for eyes; and any other details your imagination inspires.

2. Sock Mouse

One tube or knee sock can be repurposed into several toy mice. This is especially good for families who have a cat who is also feeling the pain of shelter-at-home boredom.

Materials:

• A sock
• Felt
• Buttons
• Stuffing (foam, tissue paper, etc.)
• Glue
• Yarn or pipe cleaner
• A shoelace

Cut the sock to the size of the toy you want to create. Fill the sock with stuffing and stitch off the end or tie it off with yarn or the shoelace. This tie-off can also function as the mouse’s long tail and can be used to dangle it in front of a cat at play.

Cut ears out of felt and glue them into place. Glue on yarn or pipe cleaners for whiskers, buttons for eyes, and a different-colored button for the nose.

Individual ankle socks can also be used to make sock mice.

3. Sock Snowman

Use a white tube sock to get a head start on the holidays with a cheerful snowman sock toy that will look great on the hearth when the cold weather returns (and with it, hopefully, a coronavirus vaccine).

Materials:

• White tube sock
• Needle and thread
• Rubber bands
• Pipe cleaners
• Buttons
• Stuffing (cotton, tissue paper, etc.)
• Felt or scrap cloth
• Glue

Fill the white tube sock with stuffing and tie or stitch off the top with yarn, rubber band, or pipe cleaner. Use more yarn, rubber band, or pipe cleaner to divide the snowman’s body into three “snowball” segments. Tie a strip of colored cloth around the “neck” segment to act as a scarf.

Glue buttons on the snowman for eyes and, well, buttons. Use pipe cleaners to create arms, a corncob pipe, etc. Extra credit if you can use a little black felt to create a top hat!

4. Sock Caterpillar

Have some tube socks or knee socks, especially multi-color candy stripe socks! Add a few simple materials, and you have everything you need to make a sock caterpillar!

Materials:

• Tube sock
• Needle and thread
• Rubber bands
• Pipe cleaners
• Buttons
• Stuffing (cotton, tissue paper, etc.)
• Glue

Fill the tube sock with stuffing and stitch closed the end. Use rubber bands or yarn to tie off segments of the caterpillar. Extra credit if you can make each colored stripe a new segment!

Glue buttons to the face of the caterpillar for eyes, and glue pipe cleaners to the top of its head to act as antennas. You can add any other details you like with a marker.

5. Sock-topus

If you have a purple sock or other colorful sock, that’s the perfect time to make a “sock-topus.” That is, a sock octopus. An octopus made from a sock. Get it?

Materials:

• Colorful sock
• Rubber bands
• Pipe cleaners
• Buttons
• Stuffing (cotton, tissue paper, etc.)
• Glue

Fill the end of a long sock with stuffing and stitch, rubber-band, or tie it off with yarn or pipe cleaner, leaving a substantial length of the sock unstuffed and untied.

Cut the extra length of sock into eight strips—the “tentacles” of the octopus. Glue pipe cleaners to the underside of each tentacle so it can be manipulated.

Glue on buttons for the eyes and draw on any other features you like with markers.