making, doing

To pass the time well in winter, I've made a goal of either taking the boys on an outing or doing some sort of planned activity each day, so they spend only some of their time making their own creative fun while I get things done. For me, it's easier to connect and focus on them well in the warmer months when we can just run outside together or when it's obviously a great idea to go to the zoo because the weather's so good. In winter, it's easy for me to fall into a ho-hum pattern of ticking off the to-do list and letting them make their own fun, which is healthy at times, but not all the time.

I made the conscious decision to be an at-home parent for a few years, and I don't want to forget the most important component of that is my boys and the time I spend fully present with them.

(I like this poster, and this artist.)

By Danna Ray, on Etsy

In the planned activities vein, we've done some of these easy, at-home projects which took little effort but paid off in a learning experience and/or no-TV versions of entertainment.

1) SCRIBBLING

We do a lot of scribbling, planned and unplanned. We've tried the approved surfaces like dry-erase and chalkboards and mirrors with dry-erase markers, and Jude has tried some non-approved surfaces like walls, bathroom drawers, and one small, premeditated scribble on the top of each of the books on our bottom shelf. He wouldn't be Jude if there wasn't some sort of order to what he was doing, even when misbehaving.

Theo's first scribble

2) PAINTING

Jude loves to paint too, and Theo pretend-paints next to him because he's too crazy to be allowed near real paint. Here's the bathtub version of that. I used Jono's shaving cream, a muffin tin and food coloring:

Jude painting with shaving cream and food-coloring, yay.

3) BAKING SODA AND VINEGAR (endless possibilities)

I don't have what it takes to be a kindergarten teacher, and the thought of homeschooling scares the living daylights out of me, so the prerequisite on everything we do is that it will take me no longer than ten minutes to get things ready. So obviously we had to try baking soda and vinegar experiments - big results for microscopic amounts of effort. I added food coloring to the vinegar for some added shazam.

He did this for half an hour.

4) FREE STAMPS

On day we had Jude's friend Lucy over and we did some stamping with toilet paper rolls. I made simple stamp designs on one end of the roll by cutting about an inch up repeatedly and bending back the resulting tabs. They're primitive, but still appreciated by the three and four-year-old set.

5) SALT LETTERS

The other day I tried a Montessori-type activity I found that was super complicated. I poured salt into a wooden box and Jude traced letters into it with his fingers, using his flash cards as a guide. I was sweating bullets after prepping that activity. Never again.

6) UP-CYCLED SNOW GLOBES

The furthest we've gone into craftiness is making snow globes together this past Christmas. It's a little tough doing this with a four-year-old, but I let him pour the glitter in and fill the jars with water, and that was enough for him to feel fulfilled in the project once he realized how fun they were when they were done.

We used old salsa and baby-food jars and plastic figurines from the craft shop, plus some water-resistant glue to adhere the figurines to the insides of the lids. You could toss anything into these: Fisher Price little people, transformers, or whatever small toys you have underfoot.

7) CLOUD DOUGH

The last easy thing I've tried lately is cloud dough. Eight cups of cheap flour and one cup of baby oil in a plastic tub and we had an indoor sandbox. Jude made mini sandcastles using my smallest leftover containers to mold the towers. I have no photos of this because flour is boring to look at, and though I've already subjected you to the serene, non-events of our household, a photo of it crossed a line I had somewhere.

If you're a parent who prefers not to spend a morning prepping for a ten-minute thrill, these projects are for you :)