Bulldozers and Bow Ties

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Halloween Boo’s…Dirt Cheap

Do ya’ll “Boo” friends/neighbors for Halloween?  This is a fun little tradition that my boys have come to enjoy.  In theory, you gather some little treats for a friend or neighbor and leave it, mysteriously on their doorstep as a treat.  You can include a note to tell the friend that they’ve been “Boo’d” and to put up a sign saying as much on their door and then to pass on the “boo” to 2 other friends.  Target has even started selling pre-printed “Boo” packets so that you can easily slip the explanation notes into your treat bucket and post a cute sign on your own door.

We do the little-kid, low pressure kind of “Boo”.  We fill up a bucket full of treats, print out a super simple sign that says “You’ve been boo’d”, and ring our friends’ doorbells to hand-deliver treats because my kiddos want to say HI and I know they’re too little to run fast enough to make a clean get away – ha.  We don’t leave a sign encouraging them to pass it on (mom guilt I guess) but are happy if they do.

Whichever way you choose to do it – Ring and Run, Ring and say Hi, Pass on the Boo, or just keep it simple, it’s a cute little fall tradition.  We made it a super cheap tradition this year too with the help of a semi-recent discovery of the store Dirt Cheap.  It’s basically a Target liquidation center I guess?  It’s amazing – in that dig through the cardboard box, leave with grimy hands and an amazing deal kind of way.  Imagine the dollar spot left overs thrown in huge bins for about 25 cents.  Last year’s holiday decorations for 60% off.  Decorations, home decor, office supplies, shoes, clothes, toys, etc. etc.  It’s a total crap shoot on what will be there, but you’re guaranteed low prices and most likely coming home with more than you intended to find.  The packages are banged up and the store is not luxury, but if you’re looking for the thrill of the hunt and bargain prices for stuff to use at home, try to see if there’s one near you and check it out!  We found all of our Halloween Boo Bucket supplies at Dirt Cheap last month and have just been saving it for the right time…or basically until I remembered that I had all of the junk bags shoved in the guest room so that my husband wouldn’t want to strangle me 😉

Beading Materials!

I’ve had a few questions about the materials we used for beading with my 4 year old this week.  I have a bunch of different stuff in my beading bucket 😉 but I’ll list some options for you that are easy to grab on Amazon.  Honestly, depending on the day, I might rather go to JoAnn’s and use my coupons and see what is the best deal but when I’m in normal craycray mode, Amazon is my go-to.  So, I’ll list the Amazon links, but you can always use this as a guide through your local craft store as well!

Cords/Strings:

1.) When mine are young and/or their fine motor skills aren’t great, I like lacing card/bead strings to use for beaded necklaces.  They have a long aglet (apparently that’s the word for the long plastic thingy on the ends of your shoe laces) that allows for easy beading.  I just tie a bead on one end as the knot and then I let them go to town.  Once the beading is done (and some beads have inevitably fallen off and I’ve consoled and replaced the beads), I just tie a giant knot together…it’s not super pretty but it works.  The lacing bead strings also tend to be longer, which somehow I feel like is safer for toddlers so they won’t accidentally choke (?!? this makes no real sense, but it’s what I do).

2.)  Pony Bead Lacing Cord is what we progressed to next.  It’s a plastic cording that I feel like is a little “older” looking but it’s still stiff enough that it’s easy to string beads on and can just be tied in an easy knot at the end.  It comes in a longer roll, so you can just cut to size (always leave longer than you think you need – these darned beads are hard to tie on sometimes).

2) This same type of plastic cording comes in a necklace form that has a plastic clasp already on the end.  One side is thinner so it’s easy to string the beads on and it’s easy to open and close for little ones – this is my favorite/easiest way to make necklaces lately with my 4 year old.

3.) I just tried this Stretch Magic cord this week but it seems relatively good and is much thinner than the other options I’ve listed so far.  It does stretch a little so is forgiving if you happen to cut the string too short for the necklace your 4-year-old was working on…hypothetically, of course.  It is a little harder to tie at the end because it’s thinner/slicker but it’s easy to lace your excess string back through the first couple of beads to make sure it’s secure.

4.) I just bought elastic cording for my son today because he’s apparently promised 2 girls in his class that he’ll make them bracelets – hahaha.  I haven’t purchased this before because I felt like it would be too flimsy for little hands and I know it will fray and some of the beads with smaller holes won’t fit on it easily, but given the whole-hearted request to make bracelets happen, I succumbed and we’ll try it.

Beads:

I have a container labeled “beads” in my craft closet and we just buy what we like and store each different type of bead in separate plastic baggies within the box.  I’m sure that there are 4-year-old girls all over the world with cute little bead organizers, but I know that one flying boy leg is going to make the whole thing tumble and my OCD brain won’t be able to handle all of the beads mixed together.  So, pick your poison 🙂

Here are some of the beads that we like the best:

  1. Classic, Glitter, and/or Glow in the Dark Pony Beads
  2. Animal Beads – these are the hit at my house – and have always been used in my boys’ preschool classrooms – (they have transparent ones at the craft stores, but I couldn’t find on Amazon)
  3. Letter Beads
  4. “Sports” Beads…cause anything with a sports ball makes it automatically “not girly” in our house, which is apparently cool
  5. If you don’t mind or even like a mixed bag…literally…I just saw an awesome bag of mixed beads in the craft section of Target today that you can buy online here – and they’re pretty cheap!

If you’re trying beading with a young toddler, stick with the lacing strings and try some of these larger beads: (Reusable) Alphabet Lacing Beads, Shapes Lacing Beads, or String a Farm

If you think you can roll with a cute bead organizer, I might just buy the beads in a kit and get started in one fell swoop.  This set looked cute on Amazon, though I clearly haven’t purchased it before…and it’s not the most “masculine” of sets if you’re looking for boys.  Maybe throw in some of the ball beads listed below and they won’t notice.  **I don’t know how small the holes are in these beads and whether they’ll fit through all of the cording I listed above, so just know that in advance!

Extras:

1.) Key chain Clasps: Any of these strings can be tied onto the end of these cute key chain clasps – they’re big and plastic so they’re easy for little ones to use and I feel like we’ll make about a million key chains over the course of the upcoming birthday party season 😉  I didn’t love that I couldn’t find a bag on Amazon smaller than 100 count that seemed to be reasonably price but someone told me that Hobby Lobby carries them, so you might try there if that’s in your area.

2.) I have some sorting trays that I use with beads…but I can’t remember where they’re from.  We like to pour out our different types of beads into different cubbies…like I said, I’m OCD and don’t like the beads to mix.  Here are some nicer ones if you think you’ll use them for other activities around the house.  Or, just use a good old fashioned muffin tin from your cabinet.

Whew – who knew there could be so many words about an easy preschool activity? But, hopefully you find some options that make it easy to get up and running.  And, fingers crossed that it’s something your little decides he loves so it buys you a few minutes of peace over coffee.

Construction Truck Toys

I won’t even tell you how many construction truck toys we have – or have had – at our house.  It’s staggering.  And, I’m not even counting the small ones that are just in our “car bucket” that are easy to grab at Target just to make it through the store (or so I hear…I would NEVER do that).  I have weeded some out through the years, but all three of my boys have loved them so much, it’s sorta a staple at 0ur house and I’m afraid to get rid of too many more before the baby gets bigger and inevitably goes through his truck phase.  That being said, they’re not all created equal and I’ve gotten a few questions about favorite trucks, so I’ll post some of my top favorites here and link to the ones I can – although some of our older ones were hard/impossible to find:

  1. Bruder Trucks are normally HUGE so they’re a space investment and a financial one because they are definitely pricer but are built to last.  We’ve only had a couple of these  (I honestly don’t want a lot of huge trucks around, but they are definitely favorites and it’s worth it to have at least one!  Because they do tend to be pricier, I keep my eye out for them (especially as gifts) at Marshall’s because they have started to carry them!  Here are a couple of our favorites that you can snag on Amazon: Crane Truck, Fire Truck (I’m counting this because my boys love this one and the fire hose supposedly sprays real water, but I’ve been the fun sucker and haven’t let them do that 😉 ), and Cement Truck.
  2. CAT trucks are definitely some of the boys’ favorites – we buy them at Target and Amazon and my boys love the ones that move, make sounds, and some flash lights.  These tend to be our favorite front loaders/diggers because they have an electrical arm that moves up and down.  I was going to link to our favorites but they seem to be IMPOSSIBLE to find online.  I think I bought them at Target and some at Toys R Us, so that’s no help.  I was trying to find easy links and I can’t find our exact ones besides this Dump Truck.  These are similar trucks to what we have but are a mini pack but still look like a good set. And this is the same type of toy just a different truck than we have (although mine would LOVE this one).  I either can’t find the rest, or they’re so over-priced on Amazon that I can’t link in good conscience.  These are the same brand so would be fun lights/noise if you like the concept but not the trucks I found: Police Helicopter, Police Truck,
  3. Road Rippers are another good brand to buy.  We have a couple of these vehicles and they move, light up, and make noises but aren’t constant so they’re not too annoying for mama 😉  Our favorites are this Fire Truck, and Ambulance (make sure you grab that $3 off coupon on Amazon right now!).
  4. WOW brand trucks are amazing!  They’re for your younger toddlers and have interesting features, are intuitive, and are quality products.  They are a little bit more expensive as well, but they last so long and tend to promote more pretend play at my house and hold my kids’ interest for longer.  We love getting these at the Toy Maven in Dallas or they’re on Amazon: Recycle Truck and Harvester (OMG how cute is this!? We don’t have this one, but I might add this to Charlie’s 2nd bday list – I’m kinda excited!).

Lunchbox Extras

I grabbed these extra accessories to make lunches a little more fun this year (look at my other lunch box recommendations & accessories in my Back to School 2018 post)! My husband and I took a cooking class at a Sur La Table recently and when we were there, I noticed these Foodoodler Pens.  They’re edible-ink markers and I thought they would be cute to decorate sandwiches with.  I use cookie cutters to cut the boys’ sandwiches for lunch sometimes, so I grabbed a new school bus for the 1st day of school and thought I’d decorate the bread with these pens.  There are a couple of other cookie cutters that look cute here and here (I have these ones) or any larger sized metal cookie cutter works well too!  I also grabbed these cute joke pages (also at Paper Source) that look easy to tear out and throw in lunchboxes — and look appropriate for little ones!  Show me your lunchbox creations on Instagram – I want to see!  But don’t worry, my lunches look normal most of the time…and by the end of the year, I’m throwing snack bags in there like every other mama – lunches in May are not for public acknowledgement 😉

PS The Sur la Table cooking class was so fun!  It was not cheap, but it was a super fun way to mix up date night and would be a fun idea if you have one close to you and haven’t done it yet.  It’s also a fun “experience” to give or ask for as a present, so keep it in mind as we approach the holidays!

Road Trip Toys

I panic before every family trip we take.  Some about safety, activities, sleep, etc. (normal mom stuff), but almost more about boredom/happiness/distraction on the way there & back…I can NOT handle kiddos screaming in the car.  So, I try to distract, distract, distract.  We do have iPads that the boys can play on, but I usually won’t let them do it for very long – and mine tend to get car sick (extra bonus worry) – so I need other tactics of distraction.  And, they’re kids.  Boy kids.  They need to disperse energy and when they can’t…it’s not pretty.  There are so many ideas that I’ve used over the years, and it changes based on child, age, interests, and duration of travel.  But, we have an upcoming 14-hour drive for “vacation” (a trip with kids, am I right?) and it’s the longest road trip we’ve ever taken, so I’m letting ipad/movie-watching rules go out the window and I’ll be happy for them to watch as much as they like.  But when that doesn’t work, I need some backup.  So, here’s what I have packed for the boys.

Each kiddo has a backpack with:

  • Ipad/headphones
  • A tackle box that I use for dry snacks – it makes it fun for them to pick what they want and have a variety of options. I usually have things like dry cereal, dried fruits, crackers, nuts, etc. and some non-chocolate (read: non-meltable) treats like fruit snacks, jelly beans, mini marshmallows, Mike & Ike’s. I really like the size that I have linked – it’s small enough to be manageable but gives them plenty of options!
  • Activity Binders – I have a binder for each of my older boys that has activity pages in it tailored to their age and interests. In the front of each binder is a zippered pouch to hold markers, crayons, stickers, and some pipe cleaners.  Next, is a pocket that holds activity pages that I’ve torn out of books like this Melissa and Doug Sticker Face Maker.  Then, I have a ton of free printables I found online (or tore out of coloring books we already have) and hole punched them for the back of the binder.  I searched for coloring pages – superheros for the 4 year old and Pokemon for the 7 year old, dot-to-dot pages, letter awareness pages, math facts, color by number, mazes, etc. It did take a little time to search for all of them but I figured it was time well spent to distract and it was free!  After all of the activity pages, I added some blank paper that I hole-punched for free draw.  The binders are easy to update as needed and are now easy to pack in a hurry.
  • Car Trip Toys – I have a box of toys that are stored in the boys’ closet that are exclusively saved for travel and other special “quiet” occasions like a Baptism or something where they need to be extra quiet. I feel like when they’re saved for special occasions, they stay new and entertaining.  Plus, they’re easier to organize and pull out when I need them.  I have these divided into ziplock bags so that they can be given one bag of a few toys at a time and not just blow through everything in the first 15 minutes.

Here are easy links to most of the toys that are shown in these pictures.  Some of these toys are old and not easily available so I just linked to the closest thing I could find.  And some of these are Target Dollar Spot items that I posted about previously.  Otherwise, I am listing all Amazon links here because it’s normally the easiest, but I will say that some of the cheap items are actually less expensive at your local toy store, so you should check that out if you have the chance! I love the mini toys in the plastic bins at toy stores, and I love Lakeshore Learning for small toys too.  A lot of these listed below are good for both the 7 and 4 year old, so I’ll mix them up for the return trip home – so definitely look at all of the pictures for ideas of what your kiddos might enjoy!

My 7-Year Old’s Toys:

Target Activity Workbooks / Kids Card Games / Road Trip Bingo / Mad Libs Jr / Paint By Sticker Books / Stretchy Fidget Sensory Toy Tubes / Carnival Toss / Plus Plus Blocks / Mini Play Dough / Finger Puppets / Snack Box (Tackle Box) / Rubix Cube 2×2 / Water Wow Books / Wiki Sticks / Silly Putty / Kanoodle Jr / Color Matching Puzzle Ball / Handheld Water Game / Pokemon Cards

My 4-Year Old’s Toys (Can you tell who I’m the most worried about entertaining?):

Magic Drawing Slate / Target Activity Workbooks / Stretchy Fidget Sensory Toy Tubes / Plus Plus Blocks / Road Trip Bingo / Kids Card Games / Water Wow Books / Snack Box (Tackle Box) / Slinky Jr or Big Plastic Slinky / Fidget Cube / Finger Puppet Monsters or Paw Patrol / Lacing Cards / Alphabet Scratch-Off Book / Colorforms Take Along Set / I Spy Book / Finger Flickin Baseball Game / Magnetic Doodle Balls or Wooly Willy / Handheld Water Game / Dot to Dot Book / Mini Hungry Hungry Hippos / Mini Etch-a-Sketch / Silly Putty / Avengers Key Chain / Rubix Bear / Pokemon Cards / Reusable Puffy Sticker Play / Mini Play Dough / Mini Pokemon Figures / Kid-friendly Headphones / Wiki Sticks

My (Almost) 2-Year Old’s Toys:

Travel Tray / Matchbox Cars / Mini Animal Figures / Sticky Notes / Dimpl Color Popper Toy / Crayola Dry Erase Travel Book / Shark and Foot Squeeze Toy or Panic Pete Squeeze Toy / Finger Puppet Monsters / Reusable Sticker Pad / Mini Bead Maze / Pig Squeeze Critter / Magnetic Drawing Board / Stretchy Fidget Sensory Tubes / Key Chain Noise Maker / Boogie Board / Wiki Sticks / Light Up Wand / Snack Box (Tackle Box) / Color Fidget Pad / Crayola Mess Free White Paper / Water Wow Books

Colored Rice Sensory Bin

I’m pulling out all of my old-school stops this summer.  If you’re looking for an inexpensive sensory idea, make a bin of colored rice!  I used to have one of these when my oldest was little and then a kiddo friend threw up in it.  So, that got dumped.  It’s only taken me about 3 years to make another, but I forgot how easy and fun it is.  Buy a jumbo bag of rice (Tom Thumb has them…they’re not hard to find), food coloring, vinegar, gallon sized Ziplock bags, and you’re good go to.  Your kids can help you make the rice if you want to prolong the activity, or you can make it ahead of time but be prepared for random fascination.  My kids love to mix up the different colored rice into the bucket, scoop and pour, bury objects, etc. etc…all the same things that they do with our “bean bucket” if you saw that post.  Rice does tend to fling around…especially with a toddler…so go outside or get your broom ready, but it’s worth it for the shockingly long amount of time that mine will spend playing with it.  It’s like a kid Zen garden.  And, I always put a beach towel under our sensory buckets so that it helps with cleaning up – I just pour everything that fell onto the towel back in the bucket and sweep up the rest. To make the colored rice, use the ratio of 1 cup of rice, 1 Tbsp vinegar, and food coloring and go to town.  I bought a huge bag of rice and divided about 5 cups of rice in each gallon bag, added 5 Tbsp vinegar, and started with about 20 drops of food coloring and adjusted as needed for each color – some I added about 10 more to brighten them up a bit.  Shake the bag really well to coat the rice and then open it up to dry or spread it in a throw-away foil pan to dry a little faster.  My one tip is that if you are mixing the food dye to make a new color (like purple), combined the food dye drops in a measuring spoon or something before you drop them into the rice, otherwise you’ll have rice that soaks up one color or the other more and it won’t look as pretty as you’ll want…or maybe I’m just obsessive…but I’m passing it along.  Oh….and I will add that if you have even the slightest bit of OCD, trying to make this pretty rainbow will drive you half insane.  And then seeing how delighted your kids are to mix the colors the INSTANT they have access to the bin is potentially defeating.  So, I’ve heard 😉  You have been warned.  Have fun and tell me know how yours turns out!

PS  I clearly took my small joys where I could…and preferred to look at the bottom of the bin that was still somewhat pretty 😉 …and also to ignore loads of left-over 4th of July tattoos that were still going strong.

Back-to-School Dollar Spot at Target

 All three of my kids love this Play Foam stuff. I won’t lie, it does come apart a little bit (it’s like a bunch of styrofoam beads magically stuck together without being sticky), and it will leave little beads on the floor if your kids walk around with it…which mine aren’t not supposed to, but obviously do anyway.  Regardless, I saw the idea to have your kids use it like playdough to form letters on a card and make an interesting way to “practice” letters without tracing them (I literally just found a kit on Amazon here).  My 4 year-old loves this foam and basically only knows the 5 letters in his name – when we’re lucky – and is giving me major heartburn about his lack of letter recognition all the sudden, so I thought this would be a good way to practice that he might be really into.  So, it’s been in the back of my head to make flashcards with letters on them (cause I didn’t know you could buy a kit).  So, imagine my surprise when they suddenly appear before me in Target’s dollar spot (they’re of course $3 cause $1 would be too good to be true)…with letter packs and number packs! YAY! I will gladly pay $6 for the letters and numbers and save my time for other useless things! 😉

Don’t think I left Target with just my one dollar spot find…that would make my husband too happy, and quiet my screaming kids too quickly.  I also found some magnetic shapes and numbers that will be cute for the front of the washing machine (why can’t my fridge be the old crappy magnetic kind…I’d really enjoy cluttering it up) or thrown in sensory bucket.  And we’re going on a road trip soon, so I’m on the lookout for new car toys and they had a big pack of generic Wikki Stix (awesome to just throw in your purse for distraction when you’re running errands), felt finger puppets, and tubes of mini building blocks similar to ones that I’ve almost purchased about 10 times from Nordstrom and then resisted.  And to cap it all off, they had plastic letter trays that would make perfect art/sensory trays for $3.  So, all discretionary income is apparently spent in the first 5 minutes of my Target run. #typical

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I know…how can I ramble for 3 paragraphs about a few toys from the dollar spot?  But I mean, how can I not?  They were super exciting scores in my house and I’m just trying to abstain for a full week before I go back and see what I missed.  But, the Play Foam cards were a total score and you should RUN to grab some for your preschool kiddos!

Good Busy Activities: Mad Matter & Perler Beads

We’re starting a “slow” week of summer around here and are purposefully trying to stay close to home.  We’ve been so busy, that we need a little bit of down time.  Although, my two oldest start arguing about minute 2 so we’ll see how long this lasts.  But, we pulled out some activities today and all 3 boys stayed occupied for a little while (I won’t show you what my floor looked like after all of the sand, but thank goodness for my handheld vacuum).  We opened a new bag of Mad Matter, a present my 4 year-old got for his birthday, and enjoyed playing with it.  It’s very similar to kinetic sand, if you’ve used that before, but is a bit more firm so it can hold it’s shape for longer.  My kiddos LOVE kinetic sand, and this Mad Matter may even be a little better!  The colors make it fun too.  After a while, the baby got the sand tray and tools, and the others moved on to Perler Beads (Perler beads are the plastic beads that are placed on a tray and then ironed to fuse together).  The creations take a lot of patience and a lot of fine motor skills practice.  The thing that was new today is that I found “Biggie Beads” YAY!  They’re just a giant size perler bead that my 4 year-old can use by himself without making everyone miserable!  I bought some new trays for both boys and today was the perfect day to pull them out and let them start on their projects.  They didn’t finish – they both picked big patterns – but we’ll leave our trays out and work on them for the next couple of days.  Easy links for what is shown in my picture are listed below:

1. Mad Matter / 2. Classic Pearler Tray & Pattern / 3. Biggie Pearler Tray & Pattern / 4. Activity Trays (big, thin plastic) / 5. Sand Tray (thick plastic) / 6. Biggie Beads / 7. Pearler Beads / 8. Construction Utensils (good for play too!)