Today's inspiration comes from a pin I pinned a while ago entitled, "10 best baby playtime activities found on Pinterest". Of course, this caught my eye, with my little man running around needing multiple activities a day to be entertained. See all the ideas from the pin here! So basically, what I took away from this pin was "Trash = Toys". So with that in mind, here are some of the "toys" I've "made" for Logan in recent days.
 |
| The idea here is simple - an egg carton with pom poms and a cut up toilet roll for "sorting". Logan loves to eat the pom poms, the toilet roll pieces are long gone, but he is still fascinated by the egg carton, go figure! |
 |
| This one is straight from the website, a cut up milk jug with blocks. Logan's favorite thing to do with this "toy" is to fill the jug with the blocks, then dump them on his face... He's a weird one. |
 |
| I call this beauty, "Putting Pipe Cleaners in a Water Bottle". I know... I'm so creative. Logan likes to dump the pipe cleaners all over the house, which is super fun to clean up. |
 |
| It's kind of hard to see from the picture but this one is an empty "Puffs" container that I cut a hole in the top of to stuff pom poms in. Again, Logan eats the pom poms, but we have had some success using this one at church, because it's relatively quiet. |
 |
| To make this gem you take an empty wipes container (Toy Story themed) and fill it with scraps of fabric, strings of beads, and ribbon tied together with a big block at the end. The idea is that the baby will love to yank out the fabric, bead, ribbon string. Well, it gets tangled very easily, and Logan would rather open the box and put other items in, so this one is not his favorite. |
3/4 parts water
1/4 parts baby oil
4 teaspoons glycerin
glitter
food coloring
Combine all ingredients in empty bottle and seal top securely (I even duct taped mine shut). I also added some beads and foam pieces. All ingredients were purchased at the Dollar Tree except for the glycerin, which I found at Rite Aid.
 |
| Finished Product |
I would have a picture of Logan playing with this wonderful toy, expect for the fact that it was such a dud, he didn't even play with it at all. However, I like to look at it, and one of my friend's son also likes to play with it. Which brings me to my final take away from my homemade trash toy adventure:
For my son, this has bascially been a total waste of time and money (the entire $5 I spent to make all 6 toys), and is a hastle to clean up. Logan is a boy's boy. Meaning he would rather be climbing, running, and playing outside than playing with ANY toy (unless it's a ball), homemade or otherwise. In fact, Logan's favorite toy in our house is the step stool. Why, you ask? Because he can climb it.
I know many kids go crazy for this kind of thing, so their parents make sensory bins, iSpy Bags, use random items to paint with, and make tons of other homemade fun. But Logan is on the go, so he's not going to be interested in watching a baby play bottle swirl and twinkle. So although Pinterest didn't work out for me this time around, I did learn a lot about my son. And just because it didn't work out this time, doesn't mean that in a few months, he won't be interested. This is just another step on my journey to figuring out the best way to entertain him, and hopefully become a great mom. I hope you're enjoying your journey of learning your kids as much as I am.
 |
| Best homemade toy EVER! |
I love the step stool picture. Maybe I'll have to throw an egg carton to Davis one of these days and see if he loves it. I know he loves the eggs inside them.
ReplyDelete