Intrepid Murmurings

When I was trying to think up some new and interesting activity bags recently, I remembered a couple posts I had seen about shower curtain playmats.  They are so cool!  I first heard about them through Jen (I think?), who had linked over to Filth Wizardry's excellent how-to post about this.  I still have yet to actually do it for my girls, since the activity bags were for other people this time, but I am definitely still planning to! 

Part of the intrigue of course is the HUGE size, but for the sake of activity bags I cut them down to about 2' by 2'.   Not quite the same, but still fun and a lot more portable.  I bought an "eco-friendly" PVC-free shower curtain (at Fred Meyers, for PNW-ers) because I'm nervous about the offgassy regular ones. It was  a couple bucks more but still really cheap!  Then you take some permanent markers and have at it!  

Here is my first playmat.  I copied the idea from Filth Wizardry for the road-making tool -- taping two markers to a larger marker (for the larger ones I think she used a juice bottle).  I taped the edges when I was drawing to keep it from moving around.  It was a little nerve-wracking just jumping in freehand, especially since I was giving these away and not just keeping it for myself!  Sorry the images are not great -- I don't know how to take good pics of this kind of thing!

Playmat number two was a bit more detailed:  

Once you are done (or while you are working, ha ha) the kids can color the playmat with crayons or permanent markers.  We'll be sticking the the crayons here, unless the babies are in bed!  In the activity bags I added a couple matchbox type cars (though what I really wanted were some even smaller ones), some free people that I got from a toystore giveaway thing, and some little plastic animals.  

My kids were really interested in it and Emma helped a lot with ideas for the second one, but we have no action shots yet, since these were both packed up for other people. I'll post pictures of ours when we finally do it here, which will be soon because Emma keeps asking about it!    

Oh, activity bags, how I love thee, let me count the ways....

I first discovered the concept of activity bags around the time my twins were born.  We had JUST moved, I was hugely pregnant, on bed-rest for awhile, then tending to two newborns who were nursing around the clock and mostly only sleeping in arms.  I also was trying not to rock my two-year-old's world any more than possible (fat chance!).  

The main concept is that you assemble or make a self-contained activity that fits into a small bag.  When you need a quick (or long) activity to occupy your bored or busy kid, you bust it out!  Some are great for on-the-go, airplane or car rides, at the doctor's office, etc, while others are a bit more messy and best for home.   

So when I happened upon a toddler activity bag exchange with 12 other moms, I jumped at it!  We agreed to some guidelines (one activity had to fit into a gallon ziplock, 12 activities had to fit into a flat rate priority mailing box, we couldn't spend any more than $20 for all the bags combined, etc) and then got to work.  I chose something easy that I knew I could do sitting down -- homemade mini-books and stickers.  Once they were assembled, I sent them off, and in a few weeks I got a box with 12 different activity bags landed on my doorstep.  Jackpot!  

I kept them in a tub by my chair in the living room, and would pull one out whenever Emma needed a new activity.  I made sure to not keep them out all the time, so they stayed "fresh".  It worked so well, I eneded up using the concept with various other of our toys and activities -- I think this probably was what spawned my toy rotation plan a bit later.  

Anyway, recently I offered to make some activity bags for my twins club auction, and also for a friend's toddler.  Many of them are just so easy to assemble!  Others take a bit more work, but if you are doing it in bulk it feels pretty productive.   This time I did 7 bags:  colored pasta beading, colored pasta sorting, mini-books and stickers, lid sorting, playdough, cut and glue collage bag, and mini-playmats with cars and things.  

Here are some details about each bag: 

Pasta sort and necklaces: check out my guest post on The Foster Family blog for this one!  

Playdough:   Emma and I just whipped up 4 batches of Grandma Cynthia's awesome playdough recipe! I divided each batch in half for two sperate bags, separated the colors in small bags within the larger ones.

World's Best Playdough Recipe

1 cup flour, 1/2 cup salt, 2 teaspoons cream of tartar

Combine in saucepan. Gradually stir in gradually 1 cup water mixed with 2 tablespoons oil and 1teaspoon food coloring. Cook over medium heat until a ball forms. Knead until smooth. Add glitter during kneading, if desired.

Need playdough toys? Try butter knives, chopsticks or straws, dowels for rolling, plastic (or other non-sharp) cookie cutters, muffin tins, measuring cups, potato mashers, garlic press, meat tenderizer/mallet, plastic people or animals, plastic easter eggs...

Mini-books and stickers:  this one is pretty self explanatory.  Kids love little books their size to write and draw in, adding a big assortment of stickers makes it even more fun.  I use plain white paper for the inside of the books, colored construction paper for the outside, staple and cut them in 4-5 different orientations and sizes.  Adding in some short little library pencils (or colored pencils) is great, too.  

Lid Sorting -- Collect those lids!  I collect the plastic and metal lids from tubs, bottles and jars, wash them in the dishwasher and put them in the bag.   Here are some things to do with them:

• Just let them play! Lids can be cookies, pies,
  cakes, plates, or....?
• With younger kids, let them explore while you
  narrate or talk with them about what they are doing, seeing &
  feeling (using words to describe color, size, texture, materials,
  etc)
• Use different sheets of colored paper, bowls or tubs
  to sort the lids. Sort by color, size, words or no words, etc.
• Stack or nest lids by size from big to small
• See if you can find any matches! Collect more lids
  and play a matching game where one person chooses a lid and the other
  finds the match.

Collage Bags -- Another easy one.  I get a few magazines out and cut out tons of images from them -- pictures of food, kids, dogs and animals, toys, anything that catches yours or your kids eye.  In the bag, I add a gluestick, different colors & types of paper or cardboard to glue onto, and whatever else I can find (pompoms, cut ribbons, confetti, etc)

Mini-playmat and toys:  This one is awesome!  So awesome, in fact, I am going to give it its own post tomorrow.  Stay tuned! 

A few other ideas of things I've made, received or seen elsewhere:  mini feltboard and shapes or face parts, cars and fabric & velcro tracks, muffin tin crayons, collections of small things to sort, sandpaper boards & yarn art, dry bean sensory play, I-spy bags, laminated play mail, homemeade picture puzzles, "stained glass" (tissue paper) art, magnet collection, mini "memory" game, clothes pin color matching, lacing cards, beanbag toss....

The list really does go on and on!  There is so much out there, if you just google this type of thing.  And once you are thinking about it, more keep coming to mind!  I'll definitely post more ideas, as we try them.  If you've done this or decide to try some yourself, please come back and let me know what you did and how they worked!  

Hey, I am a guest blogger today over at The Foster Family blog -- go check it out!  Thanks Jennifer!!!  Its a how-to post on pasta dyeing for sorting and beading.  Stay tuned for a post about a bunch of other ideas for Toddler Activity Bags -- I'll try to have it up this morning!  

Hey, things have been busy this week and I haven't had time or energy to blog.  Whoops!  Since being home from Vancouver (I promise, more pics are on the way) I've been under a deadline for creating some toddler activity bags for an auction and a friend in need.  Its a crafty thing, and fun to do, but I am finding that adding "extra" things to my regular routine is kind of rough!  

When I first started out figuring out how to juggle two and a half month twins and a toddler all day on my own, just getting through the day with my sanity in tact (and all kids fed and changed) was the goal (and NOT always accomplished).  Soon I included that plus decent naps for all. Then, I added keeping up with laundry and daily dishes to the mix.  For a long time, that was it, and it was more than enough!   It has made sense to just gradually add more, once the current routine is working and the kids are a little more self sufficient, able to play on their own, I am a little more rested (ha!), so thats what I've been doing.  

Shopping and cooking weeknight dinners came next (before that Lonnie would cook when he got home) and that was a big thing to tackle, but now feels totally manageable most of the time.   Eventually, I started adding things like organizing and cleaning up toys daily, and tackling housecleaning on my own (until then we had housecleaners come twice a month, which was AWESOME).  I am still working on that one, and sure do miss the cleaners, but the savings is so worth it for us right now.  I feel like I need to come up with a more organized way to tackle housecleaning, but for now its a do whatever is grossing me out today kind of thing.  At some point along the way, I also added outings for me and the kids (at least two or so a week, ideally exercise related) which we all need and enjoy.  

Now, though, I feel like I should be stepping up my game slightly, in order to get some projects done.  Some that really NEED doing, like organizing and purging our stuff, doing some home maintenance stuff or decorating, or possibly, creative projects!  I feel like photography and blogging are definitely creative projects for me now, but they are also a time suck that doesn't always make me feel like I've accomplished much.   

So this week, I've been doing this project for the auction and its been fun!  And I think I will actually get it done without too much stress by tomorrow, too.  But I am not keeping up with everything else (note MOUNTAIN of full laundry baskets sitting in my living room), and am really tired!   I think I need to streamline some things and maybe see if I can get these babies sleeping better at night so I have the energy to get to what I want to do during the day.

I keep imagining how things will be in a year or two, with kids who are (hopefully?) potty trained, maybe able to get their own snacks, able to get their own toys and play independently for longer and longer chunks of time, kids who sleep through the night.  Heaven!  Not that am I am wishing away the baby stage, either!  These are fun ages in many other respects, thats for sure!