Making Toys-Ideas Anyone?

[Evansmom]

Hi all!

I got this idea from a poster here who says she does a whole month with her daycare kids where they only play with toys they make. I would like to do one week a month where we do this! It's such a great and fun idea and I love it so much because the theme of this year for me is to do more with less and simplify my life.

I need some help coming up with guidelines for this project. I have a few questions.

Should I offer project ideas or just provide materials and watch the kids use their magical imagination to create things?

Regarding materials, should I buy any or should we make do with what we have around the house and what we find on hikes?

And any ideas for materials, supplies and projects are greatly appreciated!

I know there are threads about this but I searched the forum and had trouble finding them. I'm sure I'm not using the right search words

Thank you!!!

[melilley]

You could make sensory bottles. Just take cleaned pop/water bottles (make sure the water bottles are the sturdy ones) and provide the children with various materials to put into the bottles. Then either add water or oil with or without food coloring or just leave the dry materials in them. Hot glue the top on. The children love these! They get to see what they put inside of the bottles and love shaking them! I did this with one to two year old's and they loved it! It's funny, once you make them and they play with them and then move on to another activity then get the bottles out again, they tend to find the one that they made and the smiles on their faces and the pride of knowing that they made one is priceless.
One other thing, for this project, you don't even need to buy anything! You could go for a nature walk and find natural materials, use things around the house/daycare etc... Just make sure you closely supervise the children, since the bottle opening is so small, small objects need to be used and can be a choking hazard, but like I said, I did this with 1-2 year old's and I sat right there with them.

[Evansmom]

Ooh, awesome idea thank you! I did this once 3 years ago with a different group of kids and it was a hit, I forgot about that!

[cheerfuldom]

there are a number of blogs and facebook groups that have fantastic ideas. one that comes to mind is called play at home mom.

[Evansmom]

Oh my gosh cheerfuldom that blog is so cool! I've been absorbed in it for an hour! If you have any more good blogs let me know

[Evansmom]

If anyone could find the threads where this has been talked about before I'd really appreciate the help. Thanks!

[MyAngels]

If anyone could find the threads where this has been talked about before I'd really appreciate the help. Thanks!

Here are a couple of them:

https://www.daycare.com/forum/showthread.php?t=35400

https://www.daycare.com/forum/showthread.php?t=35485

[Blackcat31]

Oh my gosh cheerfuldom that blog is so cool! I've been absorbed in it for an hour! If you have any more good blogs let me know

I did alot of searching for my homework project. LOL! I managed to save a few blog sites though that had great ideas...here are the ones I bookmarked:

http://chasingcheerios.blogspot.com/2010/01/homemade-baby-toys.html

http://www.crumbsinmycouch.com/category/blog/homemade-toys

http://justfordaisy.blogspot.com/2012/02/homemade-toys.html

http://nellyseggs.blogspot.com/2011/03/homemade-baby-toys.html

http://sallyzblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/homemade-toys.html

http://engagingtoddleractivities.wordpress.com/category/homemade-toys/

http://angathome.com/2011/11/11/make-your-own-baby-and-toddler-toys-ball-posting/

http://www.craftster.org/blog/homemade-toys-for-girls-and-boys/

http://www.saniapell.com/athomeblog/homemade/homemade-toys/

I don't know if any of them have been updated or are still up and running but somewhere in them, there must have been a great idea since I bookmarked them to my favorites list.

Hope some or all of them are helpful!