Homemade Ball (or bean bag) Toss Game

 If you look closely you can see the ball in midair close to the box.

We are getting so very, very tired of winter here.   I let M go out whenever I am reasonably sure he won’t freeze, but it just isn’t enough.  He needs some gross motor fun inside, and I admit I’m not the best when it comes  to this kind of thing.  I’ve said this before… I’m a sit-in-one-place-and-do-something-quiet kind of girl, and I have a lot to learn about nurturing and appreciating M’s wild side. 

So, I made an attempt last Thursday, and was successful. :)  I found an old box, traced the top of a large cottage cheese container onto it, and cut out the circle.  Then I pushed the cottage cheese container into it and set the whole thing up on our loveseat.

I found these cute soft balls (similar to a bean bag, but with some sort of stuffing inside; they are very lightweight) at Dollar Tree.   Apparently they are supposed to look like Easter eggs. 

I put a piece of masking tape on the floor and we took turns standing at it and seeing if we could toss the balls into the container.  I thought M was doing great, but he was frustrated that whenever he managed to get a ball into the container it rolled right back out.  So we set up the laundry basket on the loveseat and did it that way.  Ha!  He enjoyed this a lot and was thrilled that it was ok to throw something in the house. :)

So, just go get your laundry basket and a ball and have fun!  If you want to make the same thing I made, make sure to cut your hole a tiny bit smaller than the outer rim of your container so the container won’t slide all the way through.

Have a beautiful day! :)

The Art Box – Mar. 1, 2010

This was our art box for the past two weeks with an occasional sneaking in of something extra.  We started off with a muffin tin filled with collage items (I got this wonderful idea from A Mom Learning More Everyday in this post) – pom poms, tissue paper scraps, foam stickers, googley eyes, and a tiny amount of left over red glitter.  Also, in the box, various papers, a styrofoam tray, tempera paint, watercolor paints, craft sticks, stencils, glue, and oil pastels.

M started off with, what else, the stencils.  Sigh.  Stencils do not seem open-ended-artsy to me for a 3 year old, although neither does a paint with water book, and goodness knows I’ve let him do plenty of those in return for a half hour of peace.  M really loves stencils and lately it’s the first thing he goes for or asks for if there aren’t any in the box.  Several of you brilliant mommies out there reminded me that he is probably so interested in them because he wants to master the technique and he’s learning how it all works.  Thank you for that; it never occurred to me, and now I see it in a completely different light and I’m ok with stenciled trucks and animals papering our walls.  For now.

Here is the art work M has produced in the past couple of weeks, (minus an awesome textured painting that daddy stole and took to work before I was able to take a picture of it)…

 

A late valentine especially for me. :)  Apparently once red glitter is used for making valentines it isn’t possible to think of anything else to make with it.

 

This is M’s take on crayon resist painting.  Draw a line all around your paper then carefully paint right over it.  He said he was making mazes. :)

 

He was really interested in the craft sticks this time and I actually had to get more for him.  He started off by deciding to make a square, and then when he saw that two together make a longer line, he decided to make a rectangle (you can’t imagine how proud I was at this moment).  Then he decorated it:

Then he painted some and made a house:

 

Here’s a rainbow made with watercolors.  There is a stream in there too and some little animals. :)

 

We bought a giant coloring book with simple farm animal pictures in it.  To our great surprise there was a page of giant stickers in the front of the book.  So we taped up a giant piece of paper (2’ x 3’!) and he made a farm animal sticker collage:

        

Link up your kids’ fun art projects below…

and have a beautiful day! :)