Helpful Mom

While I was at Strong’s Museum of Play on Friday with the girls I remembered an idea a friend had suggested for an indoor sandbox for in the winter, and pretty soon I was scribbling down ideas on a flier so I wouldn’t forget the various ideas by the time I have to sit and write.  If you have never been to Strong’s they have two “sandboxes” that instead of sand have these tiny plastic pellet things.  They do sell them in the gift shop if you like, but for a fraction of the cost you can pick up a big bag or two of rice which you can put in a kiddie pool or in one of those plastic boxes that have a lid and can slide under a bed for storage.  Of course there will be the stray grain of rice or two ;P  but the time they’ll spend playing with it will make up for the simple vacuuming afterwards.  Or you can buy dried beans like our preschool does for variety of color and shapes.  And remember unlike a sandbox the rice won’t coat your kid.  Also dried beans are great for making mosaic type pictures, just glue them on your paper in designs or make pictures out of them.

I always find it funny how much fun my girls find it to cut paper.  I was reminded of this while watching Mikayla at the crown making station just cutting piece after piece of curling ribbon.  Katrina used to sit in my lap with a piece of paper and just cut it to tiny pieces.  I would hold it for her while she cut it.  It was good practice for her and since I was sitting with her she wouldn’t get hurt and the mess was limited.  If you let them cut up curling ribbon you can then save it for future art projects too.  And that reminds me that you should save that colored tissue paper that comes in your gift bags.  There are all kids of projects you can make out of them.  One of the easiest is to cut them up and let your kids glue them on paper.  Or they can scrunch them up into balls and glue them onto paper into shapes.

And of course everywhere you turn at Strong’s there is the opportunity to dress up as something.  I have found that one of the best things for toddlers and preschoolers to dress up with is hats.  Especially when they are toddlers and most dress up clothes are way to long for them.  So I would pick up crazy hats, shirts, gloves, scarves, and lots of necklaces and bracelets.  You can find great scarves at the end of winter on clearance.  Thrift stores and garage sales are great for finding hats and jewelry for very inexpensive.  Last year I was able to pick up a Bob the Builder, Larryboy, and bunny costume at a garage sale bag sale, where I was able to shove as much stuff as I wanted in a bag for $5.  At first I had looked at them and thought I didn’t need them because the girls wouldn’t want to be those for halloween, but after thinking about it I remembered that we needed boy costumes too because when their friends come over they can’t all be princesses.  And of course halloween costumes make great dress up clothes, make sure to check out the clearance racks after halloween for great deals.  Buy them big so they will be able to fit them for a few years to get the most for your money.  Another friend told me she would buy old velvet skirts for her boys to make capes for superhereos, she would just cut the one seam and then they can clip them on and off they go to save the day.  Kids just love to dress up, once you start thinking about it I’m sure you’ll come up with all kinds of great ideas.  And remember kids are only kids once, I’ve been know to take bunnies to the grocery store.  You may feel silly but the kids love it and everyone thinks it’s cute, and if your kids are happy then you are happy everybody wins.