Gross MotorToddlers22 Comments
I order a lot of my baby supplies (formula, baby food, diapers) online. My latest shipment came with a ridiculous amount of packaging.
I ordered a stovetop’s worth – it came in 3 gigantic boxes (above) and had about 1 1/2 boxes worth of packaging.
Since I had no control over the first R (reduce), we moved onto the second one – REUSE! Henry and I spent a morning making a road.We laid out the bubble wrap on the floor and taped it with painters tape (my latest friend, it doesn’t ruin my wood floors) I think the most fun was in making the road because it popped as we crawled a long it.
(This made it very hard to take the the dump truck over though : we had to support the bubble wrap with pillows.)
Henry found that the bigger dump truck popped the most bubbles, but the smaller vehicles were easier to drive along it. But running on it made the most noise!
And now its Recycled.
Our next activity turned out kind of funny and gross looking. When I saw this Dinosaur Excavation at TinkerLab I thought the slimy jell-o might be fun! TinkerLab has great directions on how to make the mold. I had troubles finding toys that would sink into the jell-o. We ended up using flat marbles, a Lego, and googly eyes (they floated).
Oh, and we added food coloring. (I thought this would give a nice swirl of color in the mold… as you can see below, it did not)
I probably should have let it set up overnight, instead we only waited about 2 or 3 hours.
(not quite long enough!)
Henry then went to work excavating. It turned out the food coloring mistake that I thought looked gross, ended up looking like black dirt! Henry spent a lot of time digging out the marbles.
Once everything was excavated, he put all his findings in a strainer in the kitchen sink and ran water over them until they were sparkly clean.
This next activity happened completely by accident. I got out our large containers (formula and oatmeal) to do a fishing activity that I wanted to try, instead Henry made his own Noisemaker!
(I love it when the activity is completely ran by Henry)
I bookmarked these in a High Five! a couple weeks ago :
Noisemakers at Family Fun Notebook
Since this wasn’t planned, we didn’t get to decorating the cans at all.
And Henry didn’t even get the lid on some of the cans : which made it kind of fun!
Whoa, there goes the G!
Here’s more Reuse for our boxes! Henry and I put together this ‘parking garage’ of boxes. All I did was cut off some flaps and used them for ramps and taped them together.
I wanted to make a two-decker something with the boxes.
Playhouses work well for girls, what can you make for boys? So we came up with the parking garage.
What do you make with boxes? What activities do you do with packaging materials?
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Dineen says
I love the bubble wrap road. I need to get my little girl a big dump truck just so she uses up more energy on something like this.
Jennifer Perkins - Naughty Secretary Club says
Thanks for all the great ideas I have bookmarked and added several to my Pinterest board. Love the bubble wrap road. Have a stack I was wondering what to do with just yesterday. Took all our boxes outside yesterday and stacked them into towers and then eventually used them as water tables until they collapsed. Much easier to get into the recycling bin when they are wet by the way.
child central station says
Thank you for linking up on What Would You Do With It Wednesdays! I'm finally catching up and have your post linked to this week's too!
Ticia says
The jello mold is a super cool idea. I really need to do more jello stuff because my kids LOVE it.
I'm with you painting tape is AWESOME!
Artistmama says
Wow! Such creative ideas! I have to bookmark and try later them on. Messy boy stuff, so fun!
Kristina says
love the bubblewrap road! we make spaceships out of boxes here :) I'm a new follower from the blog hop! I can't wait to read more of your posts.
~Kristina
polwig says
I love all these ideas, makes me want to buy some things so they can come in a lot of packaging :)
Laurabudcody says
Hi, I'm a new follower from Follow me Chickadee Tuesdays!
You tons of great ideas!! I am definately going to pick up some boxes!
<3 Laura
http://pandaandgiraffe.blogspot.com/
Kelsey says
Thanks for stopping by my blog – hope your yarn letters turn out awesome! My sons would love the way you reused the packaging to make a road! They are train/hot wheel fanatics!
-Kelsey :)
Lindsay says
What a great way to reuse some of the packing materials! We played with bubble wrap and cars today :-)
Tales of a Hockey Wife says
Nothing more joyful than popping bubble wrap!
What a great post….I love the idea of the bubble wrap road!
Cheers!
quiverfull says
awesome! reusing things this way teaches kids to be ultra-resourceful and helps to avoid the "iiiiii'm boooooored" type behavior later on. Great job!
Mama Pea Pod says
Wonderful ideas for dealing with packaging. I'm imagining our girls driving on the bubble wrap road on their ride-on toys….(hmmm….what can I order online to get some bubblewrap…?)
Christie - Childhood 101 says
Loving your bubblewrap road :) Going to feature it on the Childhood 101 Facebook page now.
katepickle says
oooh bubble wrap to drive and crawl on… that sounds like awesome fun!!!!
I'm filing that idea away for the future. thanks!