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!)