October 25th, 2011 
Jessica A few weeks ago I started thinking about DIY projects and recycling some of the items we use around our home. We eat a lot of oatmeal, so I typed in “Oatmeal Container” on Pinterest, and found this adorable busy bag game from Merriment Design.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have any straws or sticker paper, and I didn’t want to use up our entire ink cartridge printing those color pages. I tried painting cardstock with Naomi, but she decided that she was not in the mood to paint. So the half-finished oatmeal container sat on my desk for a couple weeks.
Then I saw this post by Armstrong Family Fare. I decided not to let my limited resources keep Naomi from enjoying her new game. Who cares if it’s not “pretty”? Besides, my hope in trying some “recycling” was that I would not have to go out and buy more supplies. I decided that she could learn and play just as well with an undecorated oatmeal container.
So I grabbed the hole puncher and a handful of coffee stirrers.
As you can see, Naomi loved her new toy.
Oliver liked playing with the coffee stirrers too!
What kinds of simple games or toys does your toddler enjoy?
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I love this idea. Benjamin recently tried the “dump the crayons out of the box” game (well, game for him and annoyance for Mama) and enjoyed putting them back in the box. Of course, the whole time I was nervous he’d eat the crayons or draw all over the furniture. Straws sound much cleaner. Although, he does like chewing on straws so I don’t know how many would actually make it into the container.
Naomi and Oliver eat crayons too! I would love to let them color, but they have to be so closely supervised to do it. Even when we cook together, it’s all I can do to keep Naomi from eating all the ingredients. So I was excited that this worked so well. 🙂
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