Parenting Tip - Cups make the BEST building toy!

For some of you school has just started.  For others, it's still a couple of weeks away.  What to do with BORED kids????

Buy one or two bags of plastic red cups (50 to a bag) and watch the creativity flow.  My two grandchildren age 8 and 12 build with these cups constantly. 

However, you have to be careful, because they're like dominos, if one falls, they all fall!  But watching them fall down is even fun too. 

 I saw some tiny red shot cups at Walmart after they started building, and of course I had to buy some of them too!

Thanks for readying,Cathy***************************************************************************

Parenting Tip - Cool Toys

My secret wish is to be a toy inventor.  I love to watch children play with toys, and I'm always interested in what toys keep their interest the longest.  My grandchildren in Virginia have Magformers.  These are sturdy plastic shapes that connect together because of magnets.  My four year old grandson played with these shapes for hours for two days straight, making different geometric designs and 3D shapes.  His two year old sister loved to play with them too.

 
 Bristle Blocks was another favorite toy.  I think my grandson must have made a whole fleet of airplanes.

 

A game that I play with my older grandchildren (ages 9-12) is a thinking, logic game, called Lotto.  You just need paper and pencil to draw up your own strategy page .  You are trying to guess your opponent's number sequence-made of 4 digits (or 5 digits when you're good at the game) and he is trying to guess yours.  Or if you have several people playing, you guess your neighbor's number who guesses his neighbor's number, etc.  You get a "hit" for the correct number in the correct position and a "miss" if the number is in the sequence, but not in the order you placed it.  It's kind of like Battleship, but you're not sinking ships, you're guessing a number sequence.  You can also play it with words.  You guess your opponent's 4 letter word (or 5 letters to make it harder).  I love this game!

The trouble with toys is, different children like to play with different toys. My out of state grandchildren recently came to visit and they played with different toys than my in-state grandchildren.  And two of them were both 4 year boys.  I guess I'll just have to keep buying toys because I know that some grandchild will play with them. Eventually.

Thanks for reading,

Cathy

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Parenting Tip - Homemade Toys

 I've been experimenting with HOMEMADE TOYS.  This is a subject that I've tinkered with ever since becoming a Mom.  And now that I'm a Grandma--I still find it a passion to do with my grandchildren.

I love looking for ideas on pinterest and on blogs, and then trying them out.  A lot of times I'm disappointed because my two grandsons, who live close, don't play with them as enthusiastically as I would like.  I blame it either on their age or sex.

 That's what happened with this toy.  The blog showed a toddler (a little girl) spending lots of time enjoying putting pipe cleaners in a strainer.  What a perfect age appropriate toy for a toddler--putting things into and out of spaces.  But my 2 and 4 year old grandsons didn't give it the time of day.  I tried it another day and sat on the floor with them and said, "let's make a silly hat!" I started poking the pipe cleaners into the holes, all the while oooing and ahhing.  They each contributed about 2 pipe cleaners and were done.
I took their pictures then put everything away.  Maybe if they were younger and were girls.......?


 This next idea, however, was a great success and
my grandsons have played with it several times and with different materials.  The first idea was to hammer golf tees into an empty styrofoam egg carton.  The boys had a great time doing that.  I also let them hammer the tees into one of those green styrofoam flowers blocks.  If you keep the cellophane around the styrofoam it works great but eventually it will start to crumble.

The next time I gave my grandsons an empty cardboard box.  I poked a series of small "starter" holes in a grid pattern, then let them hammer in the golf tees.  They really enjoy this activity and it is one they continue to want to do.  Yes!  Success!

Another simple homemade toy is colored popcycle sticks.  The boys and I will make elaborate paths for them to drive their toy cars on.  This continues to be a fun activity for them to do.
 

Stay tuned for the light box I made.   It has turned out to be a pretty good success, but one that I've had to tweak to make them interested in.

Thanks for reading.  Share any ideas you've come up with.

Cathy

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Parenting Tip - Egg Cartons and Golf Tees

I read a cute idea somewhere on the internet this summer that I tried with my grandsons and they loved it.  All you need is an empty egg carton, golf tees and a hammer, then this is what you do:

1.  Turn the egg carton upside
2.  Give hammer to child and watch his eyes light up in disbelief
3.  Hand child a golf tee and motion for him to hammer it into one of the upturned egg carton bumps
4.  Enjoy the smiles and happiness as grandson spends 30 minutes happily hammering tees into egg carton, opening carton to retrieve tees, and begin again.

I happened to have a foam egg carton and this made it really easy to hammer the golf tees in.  I think a cardboard egg carton might be more difficult, but once the holes are made, it's easy to re-hammer the tees into the same holes over and over again, which my grandson loves to do.

His little brother can't quite handle the hammering aspect of this activity, but he loves to push the tees into the holes of the upturned egg carton bumbs, then open the carton, take out the tees, and start pushing them in again.

Another thing my 3 year old grandson likes to hammer golf tees into is a square  floral foam--those green things you put in a vase and stick flowers into.  I bought a square one at the Dollar Tree and kept the plastic covering around it so it wouldn't disintegrate and make a mess.  You can hammer and re-hammer tees in it and it even has 4 sides so it should last forever. My grandson likes hammering tees into the floral foam even better than the egg carton.

 

So little money--so much happiness! Isn't life grand?!

Thanks for reading,

Cathy

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Parenting Tip - Be a Minimalist Mom

Whoa, I was just reading a blog entry I happened to run across and had to stop and post the link  here--immediately!!

It's a post from a mom suffering from post partum depression, but that's not what the post is about.  It's about how her young daughter completely changed from being a whiny, moody, obstinate, change -clothes-constantly, non sleeping child into a happy, cooperative child again.

I know.  You're thinking, "what's the secret?  Tell me quick!"

She decluttered all the toys--picked up stuff off the floor and just put the stuff in a box in the other room.  She did it every day for two weeks--her daughter even started helping her. 

What was the reaction of her daughter?  She spun in a circle in her room and said, "It's a dream come true! Thank you for my new room mommy!"

Then this mother lists how her daughter has turned back into a normal, happy child again.

Are you sick of having a messy house?  Are there toys all over the floor that your child rarely plays with?  Are you feeling claustrophobic with junk piling everywhere?  Are you a hoarder?  Are you selfish?

Declutter.  Get rid of stuff.  Give it away.  It's WRONG to have so much of nothing.  It's WRONG to teach our children they need more, and more and more.

It's RIGHT to live a simple life.  It's RIGHT to enjoy using what you have.  It's RIGHT to not have so many decisions to make, clothes to wash, toys to pick up.  It's RIGHT to let children be creative and use throwable things to entertain themselves.

Stop the EXCESS!

Okay.  Sorry for the rant.  I think I've got it out of my system now.  But I'm going to take this thought to heart and go declutter my own house.

Thanks for reading,

Cathy

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Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.  ~William Morris

The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.  ~Hans Hofmann, Introduction to the Bootstrap, 1993