Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Baskets.....They're Not Just for Laundry

The coming of winter, of colder weather causes moms everywhere (everywhere it is cold, that is) to have to become a little more creative.  Winter is the time for toys to reappear from storage, time for lots of baking and cooking with little hands helping, the time for building forts and the time for everyday objects taking on new forms.  Below are a few things we have done to make the indoors a bit more fun....

Laundry baskets - were these really JUST created for laundry?  Here they are hooked together with dog collars (do we have dogs you ask?  No, the kids LOVE to play dog - one pretends to be the dog, the other person walks him/her, pets them, feeds them, etc.  NO JOKE.  It's disturbing yet completely entertaining........until they ask YOU to be the dog).  We were able to pull the train throughout the house.  Good thing Joe pulled up that carpet ;)  But laundry baskets can be used as cages for animals at a pretend zoo, as a target for whatever you want to throw in them, as an individual pull thing, as a reading space (Francesca), really the ideas are endless.  Seriously, give your kid one today - see what they come up with.

One of my ALL TIME FAVORITE winter activities is painting our  kitchen window with the kids.   It washes off easily and acts like glue for whatever you want to put over the paint.  These were my attempts at snowflakes.  The kids think they look like footballs and easter eggs - I tried. They decorated them with glitter and Nico painted the window blue.  We usually start in the fall after harvest is over.  Before that Joe likes to look out back to his massive gardens and gaze upon the beauty of growing food :)  But in the winter months we have free reign.  We also do a lot of decorating to the kitchen area in general over the winter.  Lots of streamers, hanging crafts, etc.  

Super hero zip line - this occupied the kids for quite awhile.  I find anything using tape and string will entertain kids endlessly but this was a particularly fun one.     




And if all else fails...................put stickers all over yourself.  This is something Francesca does frequently and I have yet to come up with a good reason not to let her do it.  We have tons of stickers that people give us, she's quiet, she's not bothering anyone and she keeps busy for about 10-15 minutes.  It's really a win win situation.  Plus they usually fall off  at some point and she doesn't mind me taking them off.  This is what happens when you are at home for too long.  You start to think stuff like this is normal.



2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Remember Grandma Wenger using chairs to make buses and trains? AND of course, the bicycle legs...Grandma helped you use your imagination!

Grandma Goats said...

Joe use to take all the pots out of my cupboard so he could put a laundry basket inside and sit in it with the cupboard door closed. Kinda reminds me of Andy in the Christmas Story, so cute, but no milk.