A Crayon and A Box

It can be hard to keep children of all ages busy day after day after day. Get creative with items you have around the house. Keep cardboard boxes, give kids markers, or crayons, and let them have at it. Adult supervision with scissors please.

• Make a fort/house with large boxes taped together.

• Make a home/town for little figurines. Boys could do this too for army figures or lego men.

• Make a Dollhouse

• Put your little one in the box and let them practice their coloring skills. Hopefully it will save your floors, tables, and walls, and keep them busy for at least a few minutes. 

DIY MINI Catapult

Snowed in with either snow or cold temperatures? Make this Mini Catapult with your kids and have some fun launching all kinds of things from balled up pieces of paper, to small candies, to beans, or fruit loops. The best part of this is you most likely have everything you need to make it lying around the house somewhere. Make adjustments if needed.

SUPPLIES:

You'll need a small scrap of wood, preferably a small piece of a 2x4 but experiment. I'm sure a variety of things would work. A large popsicle stick, a clothes pin and a lid from a bottle of juice or a jug of milk. 

BUILD:
Glue the clothes pin to the edge of the 2x4

Glue the popsicle stick to the clothes pin.

Glue the lid to the end of the clothespin.

PLAY:

• Place small wadded up papers, fruit loops or cheerios or other pieces of cereal, dried beans, anything small and light into the cup and pull it down a bit. Let go and watch it fly.
• Test your catapult to see how far it can throw your items and them make targets for your kids to try and hit.
• If you homeschool or use this for a learning activity ask question and have to plates one for yes and one for no have the kids try to land their object on the right answer.
• Make several and build lego cities to go with them. See if your kids can practice getting items over lego walls.

DIY Toddler Toy

Toddler Teaching

I'm no expert on child development by any means but I've read enough and watched enough to know that children need to learn hand/eye coordination and fine motor skills and it is a plus when they find toys that keep them busy. I've found that most often items from around your home that are not toys tend to keep the attention of little ones for much longer then an actual toy. 

My mom told me that when I was a toddler my favorite toy was a crisco can she had cleaned out. She cut a hole in the top of the can that was just big enough for a few wood blocks to fit through as well as my chubby little hand. I was enthralled by placing the blocks in the hole and then sticking my hand down the hole to get the objects out. 

I noticed my little one trying to pull all of the kleenex's out of the box a few weeks ago and wondered if I could make something similar. So a new wipes container stuffed with scraps of fabric that I cut into small (index card size) squares. I stuffed the fabric in, opened the lid, pulled some out and sat it in front of him. He seemed unimpressed until I showed him how to pull the pieces out. Once he got the hang of it he seemed to like it. Keeps him busy for awhile trying to figure out how to get his hand down in there. 

Try it yourself. Let me know if you have any luck.