Good morning! I thought it might be fun and useful to share the toys and activities that are keeping our little ones successfully busy while we try to work etc from home. I got a full hour out of these yesterday. They transform from letters to little robots:
https://www.lakeshorelearning.com/products/ca/p/AC225/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=ppc&utm_campaign=PLA&CATARGETID=520011010000096969&CADevice=m&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIzMnMjMum6AIVlv_jBx1eIAdgEAQYASABEgKiefD_BwE
Can I count that as an at-home alphabet lesson for my four year old? 
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Great idea! My kids love the Mo Willems books and got a kick out of the Doodle series he just started - https://www.kennedy-center.org/education/mo-willems/ I'm trying to make it a daily thing.
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Window clings! I think that’s what they’re called. Those little gel stickers that go on your windows. This was a cheap impulse buy from Target and kept my almost 2 year old busy for over an hour! He just kept moving them back and forth from window to window, absolutely mesmerized. Also, mess free markers have been super helpful.
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Anyone have any tips for a one year old? We normally go to classes or story time at the library everyday, so I'm having a hard time coming up with activities at home for that time. Plus it's been cold and raining all week so that doesn't help.... We can't even go on our normal walk.
My mom is having some activity books sent to us, but I feel like DD is going to be too young to get it. I have ordered a couple new toys. Hopefully they will prove some entertainment for more than just a few minutes.
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Play doh. All. The. Play doh! My daughter loves it and will usually play for at least an hour. She also likes puzzles and has been doing a Cosmic Kids yoga video once a day.
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The Cincinnati Zoo facebook live every day at 3pm is awesome. They showcase a different animal every day and it's geared to kids. You can watch all the old ones on their FB page. So far they've done a hippo, porcupine, ocelot, and today is sloth. My 4yo and 21mo love it.
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My friend dropped off a care package with water beads. The kids played with them all day.
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@Lahela017: Melissa and Doug water wow books or any other sort of painting with water thing.
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I had purchased a fairy garden set from the dollar tree a few weeks ago with the original intent to save it as a project for the summer. Here's the link:
https://www.dollartree.com/feature-fairy-gardens?sli_jump=1
My girls are older, 4 and 7, and it has provided endless hours of both outdoor and indoor entertainment so far this week. Even if they end up forgetting about it, it has been well worth the money! They a large portion of their time outdoors rearranging the fairy garden, as well as role playing with them. They spend much of their free time inside creating things for the fairy garden. So far we have made a campfire with smores sticks, teepees, re-purposed a cake bunting I have, and ponds. We are working on painting a mini tea set I found buried in the closet.
We have also enjoyed doing a lot of baking!
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These counting bears have been a huge hit with both my 5 year old and almost 2 year old. - though their favorite game is putting them in a big cup and dumping them all over each other haha, it buys me at least 20 minutes of work time!
For my 7 year old and 5 year old I got a giant lego set that was on sale - it's 1,500 bricks, and I printed out some lego challenge cards, they've been lego-ing for hours each day!
https://www.walmart.com/ip/LEGO-Classic-Bricks-and-Animals-11011-Creative-Toy-That-Builds-into-10-Amazing-Animal-Figures-1-500-Pieces/708206775 -
@ilovepie: So what exactly are water beads!!??
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@HappyBaker: I’d love that. My 4 year old isn’t really into legos (yet?).
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The nugget comfort is saving me this week. It’s still cold and snowy here... I’m thankful they have a way to get their energy out !
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I did some panic shopping on Amazon this week. @ilovepie: water beads were definitely in the cart! DS2 uses them at school and I plan on throwing a bunch in a big storage container we're not using for a make shift sensory bin. Hoping that will keep him busy for awhile.
Otherwise, I bought a 30 pack of glue sticks, scotch tape, painters tape, colored masking tape, dot markers, colored paper, and a Lite Bright b/c why not? DS2 loves to create using tape and pieces of cardboard boxes so craft time it is!
DS1 just wants to play Roblox. I did buy a Lego set to give to one of his friends for a birthday party that got canceled. Thinking we might bust that out for him. I love the Lego set that @HappyBaker: linked to but he's not into those without an actual set. We got him a Lego book that had all sorts of things you could make and he wasn't interested. Sigh.
The weather hasn't been great but we've been taking walks outside when we can and trying to do an outdoor scavenger hunt. So far it's find a stick or a leaf.
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@wrkbrk: they are little polymer (I think) balls that expand with water. They are easy to store because they are tiny but absorb water in about an hour to be the size of a large pea. They are non toxic, but definitely don't want to be eating them.
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@ilovepie: Cool! Do you use them again after they dry out? What do your kids do with them?
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@Mommy Finger: it did come with two booklets for instructions on how to make a bunch of animals, I have one kid that wants instructions and the other wants to just make what she wants! We’ve been watching LegoMasters so that’s inspiring them to be more creative!
We have water beads but I feel like we’re doing it wrong haha. They end up EVERYWHERE, I have them in a big Tupperware but they end up spilling them and then they bounce in a billion directions!
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@wrkbrk: we use them as sensory play. They bring trucks or animals and dig in them and make up stories. Honestly I'm not a huge fan of the mess so we don't do them often but my kids love them. It's easier when we can just do them outside on the deck.
@happybaker: we have the same issue. My 6 year old is getting better at tracking them down and being careful. I found having less this time helped.
They dry out slowly and I suppose you could reuse them. I just wind up tossing them in the house plants after a week or so.
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Oh and if you keep giving them more water, they will get huge!
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UNO! I taught DD yesterday and she's obsessed!
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@wrkbrk: Oh my gosh, my son loves those letter bots. A play center we go to pretty frequently (before the pandemic) had them and he would play with them for SO long. I might buy him a set for easter.
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@Lahela017: Definitely sensory play. Put some dried oatmeal in a bowl with a spoon and then give DD a couple of extra bowls to dump back and forth. Or bury toys in some dried beans. My son used to get so much playtime out of a one of those underbed storage containers of dried beans. He could sit in it and pour them back and forth.
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DS is 6.5 and we got a couple of hours of fun when we introduced him to mad libs. He didn't know the terms like noun and adjective, but once we explained it, he mostly got the hang of it. He's also been very inspired by the Mo Willems doodle videos to start making elaborate drawings of his own made-up machines and games.
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@Chuckles: unfortunately DD still puts everything in her mouth.
l love the idea though. I'll do some sensory water play with her!
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@ilovepie: Thank you! I never knew what they really were.
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@LadyDi: They make numbers too!
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@winter_wonder: Do you play that alone??
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Thankfully I had a large bin we weren't using. The kids are super happy right now! And yes, they will be everywhere.....
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I bought a drone. 🤦♀️
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If you live in Brooklyn, there's a Quarantine Rainbow scavenger hunt people have set up! It's super cute.
Otherwise, I'll take any ideas to entertain a very active 9mo. Day 6 of being at home here, and his daycare isn't open for another 3 weeks, assuming it doesn't get extended.
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