Ring Toss

Materials:

Bowl

Wooden spoon

rings (or play bracelets, like I used)

playdo

The pictures are pretty self explanatory. But just in case, put the playdo on the bottom of the bowl, stick the spoon in the playdo, then toss the rings to try and make it on the stick.

This was not Riley's favorite, I don't think she had the motor skills to throw the rings that well. Next time, I might just have her throw them into a bowl, with out a stick. I'm sure that kids 3 1/2 and older could do it, though.

Idea stolen from my friend Robbin

Beans & Noodles

Keep the beans/noodles in a Ziploc bag and then get a variety of kitchen utensils and containers, the aluminum bowls are good because they make that cool "chink" sound. For today, I used some of R's play kitchen set. She played this for over an hour, and asked to do it the next day. One good idea my friend gave me, is to do it on a tray, so that they keep some sort of order. (I used chick peas and white beans and some old decorative noodles)

BOX!

I saw this on my friend Tennille's blog a while ago, and thought it was so simple. So, I now save the diaper box every time we get them and let the kids play in it for a few days (only a few days because I get annoyed with the box just lying around).
Riley loves to get in and just sit and curl up in a ball. This morning I was pulling her around like a train and she loved it! Chloe likes to bang on the top of the box and sometimes venture inside, if the box is tipped over.

Leaf Activity

Fall has arrived finally in San Jose, so I thought we could do something with all the leaves outside. We got a bag, collected as many leaves as R liked.
When we first dumped them out, I had her sort them into piles of similar shape and color. Then I showed her how to do a leaf rubbing, (being 2 she had a hard time holding the crayon right, so I did hand over hand with it). She kept wanting to put the leaves on the paper, so I gave her some tape and then just had her tape the leaves on, she really liked this!

Tops and Bottoms

Everyone knows to have "free cupboard" in the kitchen for when you are cooking. But I never thought to organize it a little.
Put out Tupperware, with matching tops scattered around. Have them match up the tops to bottoms. Then you can build a tower, and knock it down over and over. Finally, make sure they take the tops off and put them away.

This wasn't a favorite of R's, she had a hard time fastening the tops, so she got frustrated, maybe I'll try again in a few months.

Wrapping up toys

So, I was wrapping a present for a birthday yesterday, and on a whim gave "R" a piece of the paper with some tape. I told her to go wrap up a toy, and to my amazement she spent a good 30 minutes doing this. She would walk up to me and say "Happy Birthday" then unwrap the toy, then go find another toy and do it all again. So easy, so cheap!

Play Dough

So Easy! And cheap! The actual playdo is priced so reasonable, some of the tools area little more, but worth it. (I want the new ice cream maker thingy). Riley will easily be entertained for a good half hour with it.

A few things I try to make sure of
- keep it in a bag all together
- have a tray she can play on, so that it doesn't get anywhere, I got mine at the 1$ store
- Make sure she cleans it up herself! (which is a general rule for most of these activities)