Cost Effective Fun

[coolconfidentme]

Let’s share a few ideas that are inexpensive way to have fun!

For the little ones, I collected & cleaned my creamer containers. I removed the label & the little plastic closure tab on the top. We set them up like bowling pins & use a toy car to knock them over. (They threw the balls in the air at them or at each other, so cars were a better choice.)

For the older ones, I collected & cleaned some containers from food products so we can play grocery store. I taped closed the opened ends & found shopping carts at goodwill & at garage sales. I have a toy cash register & the kids like to swipe a card to pay for it. Our credit cards are the junk mail insurance cards, etc. We use play money too.

What ideas can you share with me/us?

[Lil'DinoEggs]

So many!

Masking tape: make hopscotch or four square, make roads, tape blocks together, put on the table for infants and toddlers to take off
Shaving cream: table (perfect before lunch), as a paste for blocks, outside painting, wash dolls hair

paperplates: make masks, shakers, puppets

Glue: painting, making holiday ornaments, decorating reycleables

Coffee containers (plastic kind): make rattles, slits for baby to put stuff in, plastic cap for toddler to take off, use string to make stilts (I just came up with this. I am so doing this next week!)

Throw pillows: pillow fight, forts, obstacle courses

Food: playdough, rice krispie sensory table, salt dough scultpures to paint, color salt to use as sand for projects, jello for sensory, pudding paint, cornstarch for white mud, baking soda/vinegar explosions

Borax: making crystals, making flubber

Toliet paper: mummies, rolling it up and gluing to projects

[Laurel]

-cardboard boxes to sit in
-flashlight game-make room dark or darkish and shine the flashlight on the floor. Then tell them to step on the light and keep moving it around. They will like chasing it around and stepping on it.
-homemade play dough
-put large quilt/blanket over dining room or kitchen table for a fort
-play library
-line up chairs to play train or bus, make paper tickets, etc.
-play beauty shop (I love being the customer as it feels so good)

Laurel

[coolconfidentme]

Yes! Blanket forts & boxes.., my kids loves those too. The toddlers love to put butter tubs on their heads or use them as drums.