I found this idea on one of my FAVORITE children blogs, Play at Home Mom. This may be a looong post, but it was an absolute home run at our house!!! I did this when my twins were just barely 2 and they LOVED it!! We still bring it out and it still keeps them entertained for long periods of time (20-30 minutes). I altered her idea because 1) I didn't have a big box on hand and 2) I could foresee a lot of fighting over it so I just made them each their own:) This is a definite 10 out of 10!! It is quite simple and easy to put together.
Here is the invitation:
Some of the items I used were pom poms, jewels, rocks and plastic string. I purposely did not tape the lid down because I knew the first thing they would want to do is see where the items were going and then dump them out and made sure to use a white tablecloth so that they could more easily see the objects:
My son Mark was up first from his nap and went straight for the pom poms. I didn't give ANY direction at all. I simply sat next to him, answered his questions and took pictures. He got them all out, organized them how he wanted, and then named every color:
He was fascinated with the jewels and liked to compare shapes (oval and diamonds) to size. He dumped them from one jar to the next (good thing I'd been saving all of Annie's baby food jars!):
Then of course he had to shake them and watch where they landed!!
He was a little confused by the light, medium and dark shades. He kept thinking the dark blue was black...so I lined them up so he could see the difference (excuse his hand reaching in to steal one):
Then he hid a lot of them under the sheet, again with no direction from me. He has still not discovered or even touched the box!
He asked me what this was and it took me a second to think of the word (tired brain:) and so before I could say string he said 'it's a snake!' I smiled and then he pulled out every 'snake' and said...'pink snake, purple snake, orange snake' and so on!! I guess it does look like a snake coming out of the jar!
He noticed the rocks last and started fitting them in jars while I showed him the difference between smooth and rough:
Then he discovered the box! Last thing and I directed him a little bit here and showed him what the holes were for. Once he realized that, he had a lot of fun putting all the objects in and out of the box:
About 40 minutes later Elizabeth woke up. The invitation was there but because she already saw Mark playing with everything and using the box it wasn't a true exploration for her. With that being said she still had a lot of fun! The first thing she did was sit down and ask me what everything was:
Then she did the exact opposite of Mark and started mixing everything together!!
Dumping them all out:
Hoarding them back in and then stuffing all the jars with a variety of objects!
Then eventually put things in and out of the box:
Mark even continued playing when Elizabeth woke up, so he went a good hour playing with this!! Success!! I bet you are wondering what I did with Annie my 9 month old during this whole time?
No I didn't leave her in her jumper the WHOLE time!! I did at first when Mark woke up but after he got into it I grabbed her out and let her join the fun! The first thing she did was pick up two jars and bang them together:
Then quickly discovered the rocks:
Which then naturally went straight into (and then quickly out of) her mouth!!
She loved chewing on this string for a long time:
And even the jar:
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