Did somebody say cheap?
The following activities are designed to keep preschoolers busy long enough for you to make dinner, fold the pile of clean laundry sitting on your bed, or take a shower without having a 4-year-old clinging to your legs. What’s more, they can all be done without having to spend a dime:
Indoor “Snowball” Fight: Get a large stack of old newspapers or magazines and divide it up between two kids. Have them wad up the sheets of paper and start throwing. When they get bored of playing “snowball” fight, place two garbage bins in the middle of the room and see who can score the most points by throwing the balls into the trash.
Junk Drawer Distraction: Pull out your family’s junk drawer and have your child empty the contents into a garbage bag. He’ll inevitably find things in there to play with and the distractions will give you more time to get other chores done.
Bean Craft: Don’t throw out old beans. Rather, place them in an old tin or a Ziploc bag and use them for craft projects. Kids can use large dry beans to decorate construction paper cards. Show your preschooler how to draw an outline of a car, house or animal with glue, and then let him press the beans on the glue to make a 3-D art project.
Wrap Party: Dig out some wrapping paper scraps and allow your preschooler to gift-wrap her favorite toys.
Sock Puppets: Collect old socks and turn them into puppets by using markers, glitter glue and stickers. To embellish further use glue to add buttons, googly eyes or sequins.
Recycled Sheets: Spread out a large old sheet on the playroom floor and get your kid’s creative juices flowing. The sheet could be used as a picnic blanket or as “water” for a pretend fishing trip (stack some pillows to make a “boat”) or as an ice skating rink (use plastic bags from the supermarket as “skates”).
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