Button Pond

You may not have a button collection like mine but you can play nonetheless. You can use a wide mouthed jar or dishpan filled with rice or macaroni or beads or shredded paper. You can hide just one object in it or multiple. We hid a plastic goldfish. It could be made into a game and take turns. Make sure the children playing are out of the put everything into the mouth stage. My little 15 month old Oliver LOVES the button jar. We play in it every once in a while but he is HIGHLY supervised. I cannot deny him the feeling of running your hands through a button jar. It has to be one of my favorite feelings. If I could swim in them.....

Pins and Needles

Do you have Pins? some Yarn? a pillow?

As I was sitting and finishing up some holiday crafting my son Max couldn't keep his hands off of my pin cushion. He kept taking pins off of the magnetic holder and dropping them on the floor. No good with a baby around. So I grabbed a pillow from the couch and turned it over and told him that he could press the pins into it. It started with him just randomly pushing them into the pillow.
Then he started lining them up and called it a train.
And then he said they were flowers in a garden. I love adding a little fuel to his fire so I asked him if he needed some water to help his flowers grow. I gave him a piece of yarn and told him it was his hose. He "watered" the pins and as he did I slowly raised each pin like they were growing. He was tickled with this little game. We watered and grew and then pushed down and watered some more.

As we played this little garden game I thought about using the pins as pegs on a geoboard. Do you remember geoboards in school? I did a spin on it and placed the pins in a certain shape and had him follow the pins, wrapping around each one as we went along. (knot the first one around the first pin) You can see the house in the first picture. We did a few shapes and a few letters together before it was time to clean up and do who knows what.

I love impromptu diversion. Let them lead. You just bring the fuel.

COST: Ummm..... please tell me you have straight pins! and yarn or string! and a pillow?

Variation: use different color yarns and create different artwork. Take pictures before disassembling. For older kids, have them try to place the pins to create pictures like a dot to dot. if you have multiple color pins, they could have to connect them in an order, like rainbow order or something. That way they could create something and a friend or you could complete it. I just had a great idea - what about turning over couch cushions and really getting crazy? You would have to definitely explain that pins don't go into anything, but if you had a canvas-y type couch or the undersides weren't something you would ever use, you could create some real masterpieces. I could see older kids trying to line up the pins in a way to spell their names in cursive using the yarn..... or creating a grid and putting objects into the grid. Make a zoo grid, a jail grid, a collection grid, a snack grid. Okay, I just love lateral thinking. I'll stop now.

And SNAP! The Job's a Game!

While folding two loads of laundry I found myself frustrated trying to keep my toddler from constantly un-piling my piles. It finally dawned on me to take my own advice and get him to help out.

I made a pile for each person in our family: Mommy, Daddy, Max, Oliver

I held up an item - (let's say it's Daddy's shirt) and asked him "Is this baby Oliver's shirt?" He would answer "No" but really it was more like, "NoooooooooooOO!" with a dip of inflection in the middle and a punch of an "O" at the end. I would follow up by saying, "Then whose shirt is it?" "Daddy's Shirt!!!!!!" he would reply. Then I would fold it and he would put it in the right pile.

We played that game through the ENTIRE two loads of laundry. It was magic. He thought it was so funny when I would say that the baby's shirt was my shirt. I even pretended I was trying to put it on, and that really cracked him up. Did it take three times as long? Yes. But did I teach my child something in the process? I think so.

It's all about a switch in perspective. I was almost to the point that I wanted to give him a timeout but I just made a simple change in my outlook, seeing an opportunity to have fun and learn, and it turned out to be a grand time.

That Mary Poppins was onto something.

Cost: FREE, unless you pay your kiddos for helping with the chores
VARIATIONS: Have your child sort the laundry. I sorted my own laundry in elementary school. You can start them as a toddler sorting whites and darks and towels and colors and by the time they hit school age, they are doing it on their own. I also knew a family where they put a basketball hoop over the hamper in their boy's room, inviting dirty duds to make their way into the hamper in a fun way.

Twilight Pillow Fights

During my summers in Idaho as a child we had such fun adventures. One of our absolute favorite memories at Grandma's house was our twilight pillow fights. My siblings (there were four of us) and I would all get our nightshirts on and each get handed an old pillow. After the sun went down my mother and grandmother would just sit on the front porch and watch us go at it out in the yard. We would just nail each other over and over again and surprisingly enough, there were very little tears shed over the course of the years. There were a few rules and there were set boundaries (you had to stay on the grass), but there weren't too many restrictions. We would hit each other so hard we would fall over and once you had fallen you would get attacked by everyone. My mother and grandmother would just laugh and laugh and occasionally they would throw a pillow or two.

We would have our pillow fight for a good twenty minutes to half an hour. Until we were nice and exhausted. Then we would brush our teeth, say our prayers and go to bed.

You might need to set some more ground rules for your families/cousins/friends like no hitting in the head and maybe there could be an optional safe zone where you could go and not get hit.

Gosh, just thinking about this again makes me want to go out right now and nail my brother Travis in the head with a pillow.

Different Strokes for Different Folks

Do you have a dumpster a yard sale or a thrift store near your house???

Do you want to keep a handful of kids busy and get a project or two done while you are at it?Do you have an "oops" section at your local hardware store paint department?Do you have a swatch of upholstery fabric lying around?

We summoned up a couple helper friends and painted up a storm. Carianne painted a wooden crate I picked up for $5 at Jo-ann's craft while her younger brother, David, and my Max helped paint the chair I found on the side of the road (read about that here). Just make sure the kiddos have small brushes and you'll need to be on the lookout for big drip marks.

You have to get in the frame of mind to just let them go for it. After they finish, you can go over it yourself and give it a good finishing coat.

I used paint that I found at Home Depot for $5 for the gallon (oops paint) and a sample swatch of fabric that I picked up at a going out of business sale at Storehouse. Check your local furniture/reupholstering stores for old out of date sample swatches. Mine cost me $2, but many times they are free.

The point of this is not to get them painting something completely random and clutter-y but something useful and practical. Think about painting projects you already want to do and just get the kids involved somehow.

COST: depends on how much you have around the house...
VARIATIONS: Check behind your local thrift store for things they are throwing away. I found a sewing machine table there once. free. Also, you could do something more simple, like a frame or a small wooden box. If you are painting a room, don't make your kids stay out. Just give them a very small brush and their own very small cup of paint. Lay major drop cloths down, but let them in on the fun. Encourage them to help with your projects.