DIY - A texture board and a picturebook

A rainy day always requires some new activities for children who otherwise quickly get bored. My little girls have recently been sick, and they are still recovering, so it is really not wise for us to go singing in the rain and jumping on the muddy puddles as our favorite TV character does . I've noticed they were also bored with the picture books we already have (which reminds me I haven't been rotating toys for a while).

It is Sunday, meaning our great library, in which we could borrow a bunch of new picture books, is closed, so we decided to create our own picture books. We had pretty much fun making them, and later by reading what we have created.

We started with a piece of cardboard on which we pasted pieces of fabrics in different colors, shapes and textures - from soft and smooth to rough and hard. Here is the result, on the photo below. If you decide to do such a thing, I recommend tighter fabrics because the thin ones tend to be transparent and you can see the glue marks, which in the end does not look very nice, as you may notice on the photo.

A long, twisted piece of cardboard which a hamster-mom, (and that would be me :) usually has in stock, was used for the educational picture book shown on the photos below. We have pasted various shapes on one side, and animals and plants on the other, according to what we found in the "old rags bag".

I was going through an old piles of magazines, thinking of how I could use them and stumbled upon a story about the cute little fellows, from The Hundred Acre Wood. So, I've simply cut out the two pages with the story and pasted them inside of the old folder. My girls and I have even "designed the cover", specifically for this occasion.

 My girls really liked what we have created, so I barely caught the time to photograph our work, since they were playing with it the entire afternoon.  


P.S. Of course I had to share the fun on these great linky parties - click on the buttons below and see some other awesome bloggers' ideas! 

How to entertain toddlers for a while

Do you have a feeling all the interesting toys have a 3+ label? Or that kids actually do not play with real toys? I believe you are familiar with the scenario in which all the toys you posses are lying everywhere on the floor, there are tons of them, but your toddler just wants to sit in your lap and you have three chores waiting for you to do them, or an important phone call to make.

It is very interesting how toddler can be occupied with an empty egg box rather than the entire Laugh&Learn collection. In a situation like that, homemade toys are a sanity saver for me. They are simple, do not need much of your time, expensive materials, and can be made out of stuff you already have at home. I consider them to have a double use - kids and I have fun while preparing them, and they save me when I need some free time, to write a blog post, for example.

Bottle caps as an activity for kids of all ages

PET bottles' caps are a great resource for this kind of toys. The larger ones, of course, since the smaller can still be dangerous for toddlers. All you need are two bowls and lots of bottle caps and here you have half an hour of free time, and maybe even more, depending on how creative you can be.

The older kids can use bottle caps as a real educative material. Look what I have pinned about that. We haven't tried them yet, but really intend to.

I was really amazed seeing my 18months old putting the green ones in one bowl, and the blue ones in the other. It was something her older sister did a minute before, and there she was, imitating her big sister and amazing her mom.

 Fabric scraps in a tissue box

Fabric scraps in a tissue box can also be a toddler occupying activity. You can decorate the tissue box how ever you like it. I used some stickers, but as you can see from our photos, one of them has soon disappeared, since my little girl finds the unsticking of stickers very amusing as well.

Need more ideas on toddler friendly activities and games? Look here.