A MUST read. I've read this book and it has so many great and simple ideas on how to stimulate your children's minds so they will want to play on there own and you will be able to do things around the house or just relax without turning on the TV for the kids.

On my daughter's first day of school the kids were sitting at the breakfast table.  Usually they pester each other and it can be my most hectic and stressful time of the day, but that day Little Buddy (2.5 years old) reached out his hand to his sister (4 years old) and said, "Don't leave.  I'm going to miss you today while you're at school."

He almost had tears in his eyes and was visibly upset.  His sweet sister reached across the table, grabbed his hand and said, "Don't worry, Little Buddy.  I don't have to leave right away.  I can still play with you for a few minutes."  They sat there holding hands for a few minutes and I thought my heart would break.

Then I realized the full reality of this situation.  Poor little Buddy really was going to miss his sister.  A lot.  He'd gotten used to have her around for the summer months.  They do fight a lot, but they play together too.  I decided to try to come up with a few games that he alone would really enjoy.  True boy stuff since he so often gets stuck playing dress-up with princess costumes.  I came up with a bean ramp.

It was very simple, very cheap, and very easy.  My kind of project!  I just got out our sensory bin, which has beans and old pasta.  Then I taped an old wrapping paper tube to a chair and underneath this, I put a cookie pan.  I originally tried this with multiple paper towel holders taped together, but the beans kept getting stuck in there and frustrating Little Buddy, so I was happy to find this wrapping paper holder, which worked much better.

The cookie pan at the bottom was key.  He simply took out beans, pasta, etc., and put it in the tube.  It flew down and made a loud, "PING" noise when it landed in the cookie pan.  The noise was definitely his favorite part and it also contained the mess.  He really enjoyed this and even got out his cars and tried to run them down the ramp.  Of course, he was still sad about his sister being gone, but at least he got try something new.

If you enjoyed this post, you will love our book!  This summer The Happy Mommy Handbook: The Ultimate How-to Guide on Keeping Your Toddlers and Preschoolers Busy, Out of Trouble, and Motivated to Learn was released.  If you have ever tried to cook dinner while your kid clings to your leg and cries, this is the book for you!  We give you hundreds of ideas on keeping your kids busy but also helping them learn.  What makes this book unique is that we give you a Mom's point of view and a teacher's point of view, so that you can do activities that not only keep the kids busy, but also keep them motivated to learn and develop their natural curiosity.  Kids behave better when they are given challenging projects to work on, which will in turn give you more free time to do the things you really need to do, like washing dishes, paying bills, and relaxing so that you can be a better Mom!

It's official.  My daughter knows letters T, S, N, A....and well, that's about all the official ones for now but we are making definitely progress!  I still love the dot makers that we used a few weeks ago to make our amazing tye-dye coffee filters, so I decided to use these to work on letters.  I simply made the letters with circles first, sort of like I did for the Rock Letters, and then I just gave her the dot makers.   As you can see, she thought this was a super fun and stuck with this activity for quite awhile.

Even Little Buddy had fun with the dot makers, although he didn't exactly make the letters (he's 2 and a half), but he still enjoyed it and claimed that each letter was an "S!!!!"

If you enjoyed this post, you will really enjoy reading my newly-released book!  I teamed up with Susan Case who is a former Kindergarten teacher and a passionate advocate for learning through play, and we wrote the book together to give a Mom and a Teacher point of view.  You can watch a video that explains more here: