New Activities for a Brain Child

I have been struggling to come up with ideas to keep Liam's brain busy. I needed some activities that he could handle on his own. His puzzles keep him occupied for 2 minutes, then he comes and gets me to help him get all the pieces in. He actually does this with most of his toys. Plays by himself for a few minutes, then comes over to get me involved. I understand that need, but sometimes I've to get work done... I can't always be torn away the second he asks for it.

So I sent an email to a dear blogger friend of mine. She has a goal to be a Waldorf teacher some day. She is extremely intelligent and has a beautiful and bright daughter that is a few months older than Liam. DING! The light bulb went off that she could give me some insight on what floats a toddler's boat in the "toy" department.

I was not disappointed! My wonderful friend sent me a HUGE laundry list of ideas! I was elated! She made my month!

It was going to be awhile for me to find myself at the dollar store to get supplies for some of the activities she suggested, but I had some stuff on hand to suffice until I could go buy more treasures.

I made a piggy bank out of an old jelly jar. We actually inherited this jelly jar from Ian's grandma who had recycled it (she had made us yummy jalapeño jelly). I just took a fat knife and made a big enough slit for pennies to fit into the lid. Yesterday and today Liam has doted on this "toy" for quite some time. He does ask for a little help here and there, but it's mainly for me to empty the full jar of pennies so he can start again. (Yes, I am lucky he doesn't pop these copper candies into his mouth... he has learned what is "too small" and doesn't stick anything tiny into his mouth... he actually hands me any shard of anything he finds on the floor!)

Then tonight after dinner, we found an additional accessory for the piggy bank. A cupcake pan to sort the pennies! Genius, right! He really thought this was novel!

And the kicker for today was yet another appendage for a current toy. The Pound-a-ball. We are down to one ball and one golf ball for this toy. I have no idea where the other 3 balls rolled off to. So as Ian was leaving for Scouts tonight, I asked if he had a stash of golf balls. He had a 30-pack! And they came in a mesh drawstring bag too! So Liam had so much fun unloading most of the golf balls into his Pound-a-ball maze! And then he had even more fun rolling them all over the family room!

After this activity we went upstairs to get his pajamas on. I noticed his basket was out of diapers, so Liam helped me get the new package out and he stocked the basket full of all the diapers. One by one.

He better sleep good tonight. He's been really busy today!