apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

We don't have a water table, but we do have a set of 10 plastic stacking cups, the larger of which are pretty large. If I fill a couple of those up and set my 5- and 2-year-olds up on the grass, they are happy for ages. They might pour back and forth. They might "paint" on the patio. They might pick pieces of grass and dandelions to cook "soup." I used to fill up their little pool, but in all honesty, a half gallon of water in these cups keeps them just as happy for just as long, and seems to encourage more imaginative play than the pool, so I'm saving the water.

I learned very quickly never to tell my mother I was bored. She would tell me all the things that could be done around the house and I'd get stuck with a chore!

ditto with the comment above, if I ever said "I'm bored" to my mom, her response was, "well, I'll find you something to do then!"

I just posted about this on my blog - we made an "I'm Bored Box" with a ton of activities to do so I can just say - go to the box!

http://shannondowdell.blogspot.com/

Ha! Ditto to the above. Whenever I would utter the words "I'm bored", they were always answered with "well I can find you something to do!" and it was never good.

I use the same technique myself. Works like a charm.

I taught my preschoolers to say, "I need to find something to get busy with." rather than, "I'm bored."

It's a much nicer thing to hear, and sometimes they'll come up with ideas for each other. Other times they'll ask me to get out a toy that I'd put away a few weeks ago if they've been thinking about it lately (we usually have about 12 toys/activities on the shelves at once, and rotate frequently).