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melanie
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| Posted: June 01 2009 at 9:39am | IP Logged
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Hi all,
I'm planning for next year,
(I KNOW, aren't I INDUSTRIOUS!  Of course, I'm not done with this year yet,,,hehe. I do love a good plan though.)
Anyway, I will have a toddler next year and I'm coming up with some ways to keep her occupied. My thought was to make several rubbermaid boxes of toys and such to break out one at a time, maybe at the rate of one or two a day. It would be good to have some tabletop kind of activities in the boxes too, but its hard to think of things that would work with a toddler. This one just turned one, so she will be 15 months old or so when our year gets started. So, anyone want to brainstorm? Surely I'm not the only one with a toddler to entertain!  So far I've got...
---a bean or oatmeal or rice box, maybe with seasonal treasures buried inside? Close supervision will be required at this age to make sure she doesn't eat the beans or stick them up her nose, hehe...
---those new round toddler crayons Crayola has out...I've not used those before, but they look neat!
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Melanie
homeschooling Maria (13yo), Kain (10yo), Jack (5yo), Tess (2yo), and our newest blessing, Henry Robert, born 4/23!
slightlycrunchycatholic.blogspot.com
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Jody
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| Posted: June 01 2009 at 1:52pm | IP Logged
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Melanie,
Here are a few ideas:
-Duplos
-cards in a can (cut a wide slot in the top of a coffee can and you children can have fun feeding the cards through the slot-great for finger dexterity)
-pound a ball
-play dough (my 15 month dd loves this but we have to make sure she doesn't try to eat it on occassion  )
-a tub of musical instruments
-wooden puzzles w/ knobs
-lite-brite (they have fun at this age just putting the pegs in and seeing them light up)
-Lock and Latch board
If you feel like making your own activities, you may be interested in my book Montessori on a Shoestring--A Make It Yourself Guide to 101 Hands-On Learning Activities. It's geared toward the toddler-preschool crowd. 
I hope this helps,
Jody
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Jody,
Mom to 10 blessings
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anitamarie
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| Posted: June 01 2009 at 9:09pm | IP Logged
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Are you talking about the big fat crayons for them to palm? If so, I wouldn't waste the money. I gave them to my dd at about that age, and she figured out very quickly how to pull the crayon out of the cute little holder, pretty much rendering it useless. She liked the triangular crayons much better. We love the triangular paintbrushes, much less messy than the Elmer's version.
Some things our current toddler has liked:
Laurie's Pegs
Laurie's makes single piece rubber crepe puzzles - great for popping out and trying to fit back in
Wedgits - there's even a set for babies, but she just used the regular ones
Playdough
Stickers, stickers, stickers and a piece of paper (or a blank book)
I cut an opening in a margarine tub and she puts money from the cash register in it, dumps it out and starts all over
Glue stick, piece of paper and packing peanuts
Occasionally, I fill the sink, put towels on the floor, pull up the stepstool and let her play with various containers - that has lasted up to an hour before (but your toddler probably won't be ready to do that until late in your school year, so tuck it away)
Anything that looks like the work olders are doing
I make sure I have cheap coloring and activity books in abundance.
Good for you to plan ahead for this stage. It makes life so much easier.
Anita
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Mackfam
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| Posted: June 02 2009 at 4:51pm | IP Logged
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Hi Melanie - it's never too early to be planning! 
Here is my post on Kinder-play: Play centers for the youngest. I don't know if you'll find any ideas there, but it might help.
And, here are some oldies but goodies from the archives:
What do you do every day with the littles?
How to occupy a high energy toddler
Ideas for active toddler
Favorite things to do with 3 year old
Let's talk 3.5 year olds
Favorite things to do with 4 year olds
And, there are several more ideas and resources collected on the Early Childhood Learning Resource thread.
One last link for you to consider...Homeschool Workboxes may have some neat ideas in there for you.
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Jen Mackintosh
Wife to Rob, mom to dd 19 , ds 16, ds 11, dd 8, and dd 3
Wildflowers and Marbles
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melanie
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| Posted: June 02 2009 at 6:53pm | IP Logged
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Thanks everyone, and thank you Jennifer, you have lovely spaces set up for your baby, it makes me want to go play! I will check out these other links this week. We also have playsilks and boy do they see a lot of action...even the older kids play with them still.
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Melanie
homeschooling Maria (13yo), Kain (10yo), Jack (5yo), Tess (2yo), and our newest blessing, Henry Robert, born 4/23!
slightlycrunchycatholic.blogspot.com
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lovebeingamom
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| Posted: July 18 2009 at 2:02pm | IP Logged
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melanie wrote:
---a bean or oatmeal or rice box, maybe with seasonal treasures buried inside? Close supervision will be required at this age to make sure she doesn't eat the beans or stick them up her nose, hehe...
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How does one go about making a bean or oatmeal or rice box?
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melanie
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| Posted: July 18 2009 at 6:17pm | IP Logged
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Our bean box is a large, flat rubbermaid box. We put a couple of big bags of pinto beans in it, and every so often we add another bag of beans. Be forewarned, no matter how careful you are, you will be picking beans out from under your feet. I just got done painting our schoolroom and found tons of beans under the furniture. Anyway, the beans work great, we put some various scoops and such in there, and a few small toys like a small dump truck, a couple of small animals, etc. It's a bit heavy though, and I saw someone with an oatmeal box and thought that was a brilliant idea, it'd be much lighter. Less painful to step on too. 
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Melanie
homeschooling Maria (13yo), Kain (10yo), Jack (5yo), Tess (2yo), and our newest blessing, Henry Robert, born 4/23!
slightlycrunchycatholic.blogspot.com
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Waverley
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| Posted: July 29 2009 at 9:24pm | IP Logged
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While my printer is busy printing all these great ideas, I have another one:
Empty egg cartons are great for sorting. You can give them anything to sort - pom pom balls, plastic counters, beans, acorns, legos, or whatever else you have handy.
If you want you can just let them sort on their own or you can label the inside bottom of the egg cup and have them sort by color, number, letter, etc. Of course, you'll want to make sure the counters you give them correspond to the concept.
As they gain more manual dexterity you can have them use children's chopsticks (chopsticks attached at the top to make tiny pinchers) to pick up the items.
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Waverley
wife to Dh for 19 years, dd (16), dd (11), dd (8), ds (6), dd (4), dd (9-13-1996)
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Pamin OZ
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| Posted: Aug 02 2009 at 11:58pm | IP Logged
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Hubbard's Cupboard (protestant site) has some wonderful crafts. Look at the 3/4 curriculum.
Pam
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Pam in Sydney
http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/paminoz/
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4Real Forums : Nurturing the Years of Wonder
Topic: toddler busy boxes
