Bins o' Fun

For Christmas, I finally bought myself (er, Ben bought me) a book I've been wanting for a few years called Unplugged Play. It's full of simple games and activities for children, using items you have around the house and no electronics. I've been reading a little here and a little there and trying to do a better job of creating fun activities for the kids when I need to try to get something done or they are itching for something different.

I've also been doing a lot of organizing and cleaning things out recently, so we have a few empty bins around our house - that's a first! Therefore, the theme over the last several weeks has been BINS BINS BINS. Here's a glimpse of some BIN play and the spontaneity that ensued:

Beanbag Toss...

turned hideout...

turned baby cave...

turned baskethead.

Kitchen Containment Center

Reading Nook
Cat has been doing a lot more reading to Jack recently. She always wants to have time to play on the computer, so I've started allowing her 15 minutes to play computer games for every 2 books she reads to Jack. Sometimes they are longer books such as "Green Eggs and Ham" but sometimes they are short books like "Personal Penguin." But she's practicing her reading and Jack is having fun, so I'm not picky.

Aquatic Fun Zone

On the way home from school one warm day recently, Cat asked me what we were going to be doing that afternoon. I asked her what she would like to do, and she said, "How about go to the beach?" No, we are not going to go to the beach. "How about the pool?" No, we are not going to the pool. I was thinking something along the lines of sidewalk chalk or playing on the swing set... but - maybe we can still have some water fun.

The gnats had been pretty bad around here (they are better now) so I opted for a semi-outdoors location. We recently reclaimed the back porch off our our master bedroom (which used to be occupied by a large weight set... thank goodness someone took it off our hands). I swept the pollen off of the porch and put a few inches of warm water from the bathtub (remember, we have COLD hose water) into 2 bins. We pulled out some bath toys and old food containers and medicine droppers and went to town.

Oh, and J & E were au natural the whole time,
as you may recall from this picture.
Why not?