Showing posts with label Boredom Busters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Boredom Busters. Show all posts

Saturday, June 23, 2012

3 Ways to Use a Cake Pan (No Baking Required!)

One square cake pan + assorted magnets = easy, engaging activities that are a cinch to prepare!

As I am always on the prowl for things to keep L's little hands busy and her little brain engaged, I was thrilled beyond measure to find yet another collection of activities to add to my busy bag stash. (Click here to see some other busy bag ideas!)  I don't know if this is a general toddler trait or specific to my own little tot, but our house runneth over with magnets of every shape, size, and assortment imaginable and L finds them all fascinating.  In my quest to add to our list of boredom busters and to declutter at least one corner of my house, I had a momentary flash of brilliance and decided to pair said magnets with a square cake pan: instant, travel-sized magnet play!


L is all about the sea critters these days, and she got quite a kick out of the fact that they were all swimming around in this tiny metallic sea.


Sprinkle in a little letter learning with alphabet magnets.  We have multiple sets of letter magnets in our house, so I didn't feel too bad about sacrificing one set for the boredom buster cause.


Picture cards offer amazing opportunities for language.  These were made of photos I chopped out of magazines and covered in contact paper, with a magnet stuck to the back.  Also notice that for this magnet set, we flipped the cake pan around and used the underside as opposed to the inside of the pan.

The nice thing about the small cake pan is that it isn't overwhelmingly huge so it's perfect for tiny hands and it fits nicely into a shoulder bag or backpack.  I put the magnets into sandwich bags for storage in between uses, or at least I will once I wrestle the whole thing away from L!

How do you keep your kids engaged on the go?

Saturday, June 9, 2012

Boredom Busters: Busy Bags

Lately I've been finding myself in more and more situations where L and I are stuck waiting (tax prep, the mobile phone store, picking up Dad at work) and I'm finding it increasingly hard to keep this busy and curious 18-month-old engaged and happy in a developmentally appropriate manner. (What, you mean it's not okay to let my kid climb the display case full of iPhone covers?)  I always try to grab a toy or two on the way out the door and we nearly never leave the house without a stash of books, but baby girl is getting bigger now and stuff loses novelty pretty quickly. The days of my kid sitting quietly in her infant carrier and finding my pinkie finger good for hours of laugh riot entertainment are long over, so it's time to get creative. My solution: toddler busy bags!



I just ran out to the store, picked up some inexpensive pencil cases (the flat kind with zippers and a clear window) and filled them with stuff I already had around the house. The trick is to use things your kid doesn't see on a daily basis (adds to that precious sense of novelty) and only bring them out when you're forced to play the waiting game. They're also fabulous on long car/airplane trips, or when visiting folks who won't have a lot of kid-friendly gear around.  


Some ideas for stuffing those bags:
     *Finger puppets
     *Small notepads with colored pencils, stickers, etc.
     *Foam letters and numbers
     *Peg dolls
     *Pipe cleaner segments
     *Links
     *Small plastic animals/people
     *Picture cards


You get the idea. Really you can stuff just about anything into these super convenient (some might even say magical! No? Just me?) bags. You can also alter the contents to make them more appropriate for older children as well.


Handy dandy busy bag storage - placed up on a high shelf where the tot won't see
Please leave any additional ideas for busy bag stuffers in the comments section. I'm always looking for new and exciting ways to engage my kid!