Activities for Littles & Winter Sanity {Thoughtful Thursday}

I know its supposed to be turning spring...really! Any day now. But if you live in Arkansas or any state with bipolar weather like AR then you know you're gonna need some tricks up your sleeve this month {and maybe next month as well} for those days when the brisk wind is more like ice daggers. Today I wanna share 3 silly things my kids love that cost little to nothing and entertained them for quite a while.

Pipe Cleaner Art

I had some construction paper, pipe cleaners, and {glitter} glue already in our craft supplies. My 4.5-year-old just went at it! Twisting and gluing. My 3-year-old was having a little more trouble. I ended up cutting lots of different colored pipe cleaners into tiny pieces. Then she told me what picture she wanted to make. I sketched the picture she described with a marker then I helped her outline the sketch with the glue, adding different colors to each part of the picture. They both really enjoyed it!

Indoor Water Play

You may remember we recently went to an awesome indoor playground called the Wonder Place. It was filled with numerous educational centers to play in, one of which being the giant water table. My kids spent the majority of our visit there. This reassured me that my plan to make a homemade outdoor water table for this summer was definitely gonna be worth it! BUT seeing as how we are still in transition and the weather is not exactly conducive to wet outdoor play, we modified our water play.

I filled our kitchen sink with warm water and dish soap. Simply giving them a few "tool" {strainer, spoon, fork, whisk, different sized cups & bowls, grater, etc} to do "experiments" with kept them more than busy.

I wasn't quite comfortable with my 2-year-old standing on a chair, step, or sharing the bench with his sisters for a prolonged period of time...there may or may not have been shoving involved. I chose to give him his own small tray of water with soap, and some safer tools on top of a drop clothe. #winning

Playdough Art

My kids all three love Playdough, like most kids. They do seem to get bored with the same ol' roll, smash, etc. They haven't quite mastered the molding concept yet. Soooo, I have saved a silly amount of cardboard circles from frozen pizza and we decided to use them in our playdough-play. We made, pizzas, faces, several other meals, and lots of "imaginary" things...

Once I got them going on these activities and gave general 'rules', they played interdependent very nicely. Giving them a "new game" seems to help them play well together as well as stay focused for a little longer.