Painting on Foil

 I found this fun idea on Pinterest for a new medium on which to paint. These kids love to paint and always jump at the chance to do so. I love trying to find new ways to make it interesting for them without breaking the bank. Painting on aluminum foil was perfect!

 The feel of the paintbrush sliding along the foil is quite different than painting on paper. 

 It's also fun to have the light reflecting off the surface anywhere where the paint was thin enough. The paint colors really popped and it looked neat.

While this doesn't really make a work of art that you can hang on the wall forever, it is a fun process art project. You can pick up a roll of aluminum foil at the dollar store, so why not give it a try?!

Pom Pom Sorting

 I was looking for a way to keep Sharli busy for a while and decided to go with one of my old stand-byes. Pom poms are good for SO many things, and most of them require very little prep work on my part.

 This day I grabbed a few small bowls out of the cupboard and set them on a tray with a set of tongs. I picked through the bag of pom poms to find only the ones that matched the colors of the bowls, and put those on the tray as well. I didn't give any instructions, just put the tray in front of Sharli and let her decide how to play with it on her own.

 She fiddled around with color sorting for a little while, and really enjoyed the challenge of using the tongs. 

 It didn't take too long before this turned into a game of "Ice Cream Shop". She would ask me what kind of ice cream I wanted, then scoop up a bowl for me. This kept her busy for as long as I was willing to sit and play along.

I picked these pom poms up for a dollar at Dollar Tree, and we have really gotten our money's worth out of them!

Water Painting

 Okay guys, I am so woefully behind in recording all our fun. These pictures will celebrate their first birthday next month and here they are just barely making it on to the blog. Oh well, better late than never, right?

 What do you do when you have three bored kids on a hot summer day, and no A/C? Anything involving water, right? My mom and my nephew Darrow were staying with us for a few days, and we needed to beat the heat, so we headed outside. We started small, with bowls of water and paintbrushes. The kids loved it! They painted the porch, the front door, the house, each other, etc...

 Our front porch gets some nice shade in the afternoons, and add in a light breeze and it becomes much more comfortable than the house. We all love to be outside, and this day was no exception.

 Of course, as always happens around water at our house, it was only a matter of time before the hose was running, clothing magically disappeared, and everyone was soaked from head to toe. It's just water though, so no big deal!

If this activity doesn't top the list of low-prep, no clean-up actvities than it's pretty darn close to it. Give it a try!

Flour Finger Painting

 Sharli and I had a Saturday afternoon to fill while our guys went fishing. I wanted to bake some bread, but wasn't too excited about little fingers "helping". I put Sharli in her highchair and sprinkled some flour on a cookie sheet for her to have. She thought it was great!

 I let her just draw in the flour with her fingers for a while, and that kept her busy for several minutes. When that started to lose it's appeal and grabbed one of the tooth brushes that was left on the counter from our coin cleaning activity a few days before and let her see what happened with that.

 By the time my bread dough was ready to rise Sharli was covered in flour from head to toe. She had a marvelous time and I got to get some work done so it was a win for us both!

This wasn't the first time we've done this activity in our house, and each time it's been a hit! Here is Erik doing the same thing when he was little (also while I was baking bread...).

Cleaning Coins

 This simple activity was another one that we got out of our Preschoolers Busy Book. It has so many fun ideas! You can also find instructions here.
 I needed to get some stuff done around the house and needed to keep the kids busy. I dumped a large handful of coins in a pan with some soapy water, handed each kid an old toothbrush, and there you go!

 When I had finished up the stuff I was working on we broke out the vinegar and salt to really put a shine on some of the coins. This was a fun way to work on fine motor skills, and the kids love anything that has to do with water and/or bubbles. If you're worried about messes, you can place a towel under the pan of water to make cleanup quick and easy.

*Diedre Mower is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. This post contains affiliate links.

Gingerbread Playdough!

This will be a quick post today, I just wanted to share a link to a few fun festive Christmas playdough recipes. We made the gingerbread one today and holy moly it smells amazing! Check it out here.

Controlling the Toy Clutter

 Please tell me that I'm not the only mom out there who fights a daily struggle against all the toys and kid stuff?! We have a dedicated play room in our house, but that doesn't mean everything stays put. It still ends up spread through the house day after day. When things reach that point, it's frustrating for everyone. The kids can't find the item they want to play with, things get stepped on and broken, I get cranky, it's just bad. Hopefully you know exactly what I'm talking about and it's not just me!

I finally decided I had to get some semblance of control over the chaos before we all went nuts, and since my plan seems to be working out fairly well, I figured maybe someone like you could use it.

So, here's our playroom, or at least most of it. Maren gets the other half for her bedroom. This works because she naps during the day in my room, on the opposite end of the house from the playroom and all its noise, and only sleeps in here at night. It's nothing special, though I have big dreams for someday when I get around to decorating it.

 So, how to tame the mess?
First of all, my kids have way too many toys. I already knew this, but then after reading things like this and this I decided to do something about it. I went through all the toys (while the kids were out of the room to lessen the sorrow over the loss) and threw away all the toys that were broken or worn, or that didn't get played with but weren't worth donating (Happy Meal toys anyone?).
The next step is to put each type of toy in its own container, preferably with a lid. I love the selection of small boxes and baskets at Dollar Tree, but I have also found some good cheap containers at Walmart.
 After things had been sorted and organized, I let the kids back in the room. They got to take turns choosing a container of toys, until the small toy shelf was full. Now, go back and look at that picture. Our toy shelf is not very big. It will only fit 5-7 items, which really isn't very much (especially considering I require them to leave room for a few baby toys for Maren). We then chose 2-3 "big" toys (for example, the dress up box, the Little People Barn, etc) that sit around the room but not on the shelf.
Everything that's left went into the closet. Now, my kids are fairly good at staying out of the closet (perhaps because they were told that if they get anything out without permission it will get thrown away, and they have seen that statement in action), but if you feel yours won't then maybe find a way to lock it. We ended up with more than half our toys in the closet, which means we only have to keep control of 40% of our toys. This is SO much better!

So, now that the toys are organized and under control, where do you go from there? Here's the fun part. You know how your kids get tired of their toys and wind up with piles of stuff and still bored? Well, we're going to fix that. You could set up some kind of rotation schedule, which I tried for a while, but it only works if you stay on top of it. What I have found that works for us right now is a combination of toy rotation and bribery. ;)
Any time I ask my kids to do a big job (for example cleaning a large portion of the house with me), I tell them that anyone who works hard without fighting/whining/crying gets to choose a toy out of the closet. When the task has been successfully completed, any kid who met the criteria gets to go to the closet and pick something to get out, and then choose something from the playroom to put back in its place. The only things that always stay out are the books. This way they get to pick what is rotated and I get (mostly) willing help with work around the house. Their enjoyment of their toys stays fresh, and the house stays sorta clean.

I love watching them rediscover toys they haven't played with in a while. Like today, when one of them chose to bring out the box of dress-ups. They played together with all the costumes for almost an hour and had so much fun!