My husband made butter in a baby food jar as a child and it must have made a strong impression, because he's been saying we should do this for YEARS. (I think even before we had kids.) Well, we finally did it and I can attest that it was just as easy and satisfying (and delicious) as he said it ...
Homemade Fun
Homemade Wigglebot
This site uses affiliate links. I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you!Okay, so technically this is not a robot. It doesn't have any sensors. It doesn't have a controller or computer chip. It isn't responding directly to external stimuli. But, hey, you have to start somewhere and my kindergartener definitely thought our homemade wigglebot was cool. He was so excited by ...
Raffle Ticket Egg Hunt
This site uses affiliate links. I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you!My kids love doing Easter egg hunts at Easter so much that we sort of do them all year round, particularly in the months leading up to and following Easter. However, what I don't like about Easter egg hunts is that we used to always fill the eggs with food. Since we do them so frequently, I'd moved ...
Homemade Ball Can
This site uses affiliate links. I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you!I made one of these for my first child when he was about 14 months old, based on the wonderful book by Tricia Kuffner, The Toddlers Busy Book. My son LOVED this toy so much I dragged it with us on a cross country flight to Maine even though I packed as lightly as humanly possible. (It may have been ...
Homemade Non-Reading Treasure Hunt
This site uses affiliate links. I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you!Ever since my first child was a toddler, I've thought it would be fun to make a treasure hunt for him, with clues so he could go from one clue to the next until he found the treasure. The only problem was, he couldn't read. I tried a couple times writing down simple instructions on slips of paper ...
Personalized Picture Book
This site uses affiliate links. I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you!When I had my first child, this personalized picture book was seriously the most useful "toy" I owned when he was around 16 months to 2 years old. He LOVED this book. Sitting down and looking at this book with him could honestly stop any meltdown dead in its tracks. He loved pointing out and saying ...
Pocket Matching Game
This site uses affiliate links. I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you!This idea was taken straight out of The Toddler's Busy Book by Trish Kuffner (pg. 177). Now that I have multiple kids, I don't need ideas to keep my toddler busy. The bigger kid does that without trying for the most part. However, when it was just me and my first toddler home alone all day, I used a ...
Homemade Treasure Map Game
This site uses affiliate links. I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you!I've always thought it would be a fun to make a treasure map for my preschooler. What actually motivated me to do it now was that I know a kindergartener who is having a hard time remembering how to identify certain numbers (like 11, 12, and 13). I wanted to come up with a fun way for him to be ...
Homemade Toy Mailbox
This site uses affiliate links. I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you!I made this mailbox for my son when he was about a 18 months old (so almost 3 years ago). He played with it for a long time as a toddler, then ignored it for awhile, then started playing with it again about a year ago when he wanted to play a more elaborate preschool version of "post office". Now I ...
Homemade Fishing Game
This site uses affiliate links. I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you!So far we haven't played this homemade fishing game as an actual game, just as a fun activity. Both of my kids enjoy "fishing" for their magnetic fish, though sometimes they get frustrated and grab the magnet directly instead of holding onto the pole. As time goes on, they do this less often, so I ...