I started with a rock box with construction vehicles. This bin kept B busy for a solid hour one morning last week.
I bought two bags of rocks (I probably should have gotten four) and the construction trucks at the Dollar Tree for a buck a piece. The orange trucks were actually two for a dollar! The most expensive item here is the bin itself which I think I paid $4 at Wal-Mart.
The next bin I did was a rice bin. Our local Winn Dixie had rice buy one get one free a few weeks ago, so I snagged a couple of bags with this activity in mind. Then I took a little bit of time during naps to color the rice to make it extra fun.
Coloring rice is super easy as long as you have the basic food coloring in the droppers and enough counter space for drying it out. I pulled out 6 soup/cereal bowls and put 2-3 tablespoons of water in each bowl. Then I used my food coloring to make the different colors shown. I added the dry UNCOOKED rice (about 1.5 cups) to each bowl, mixed each bowl of rice so that each grain was well-coated in colored water and let it sit for a few minutes (5-10 max).
Then I lined my counter tops with towels and paper towels, poured each bowl of rice out and let it sit out overnight to dry. Then I poured it into a metal pan that I had sitting around. I picked up an ice scoop and a set of measuring cups and spoons for less that $1 each at Wal-Mart.
This is the kids' favorite bin--they love to put the trucks in the rice bin and bury them in the rice. They pretty much ask to play with it every day. I will warn you--this one gets a little messy. I have to sweep the entire kitchen floor every time the kids play with the rice bin. I tried lining the floor under the pan with newspaper as you can see in the picture, but it didn't really work. But like I said, they do love it.
I hope to make more of them--in fact, I have already picked up some more packages of little airplanes and trucks at the Dollar Tree for another bin--but I have not made the investment yet.
No comments:
Post a Comment