The Toby Show

2 Plastic Toys I Actually...Like

It's no big secret that I'm not wild about plastic toys.  First and foremost I just don't like the look and feel of them as much as wooden and cloth toys.  But in my experience most of them just don't hold up as well either--especially if they blink or sing or do anything particularly annoying special.  I just don't like buying/owning things that are made to be thrown away. It drives me nuts.  Don't even get me started on what the crap is made out of.

But I'm not a Luddite, you know.  I am American.  And so is my Mother.  So I do have some plastic toys and you know what?  There are actually a few of them i even...(gulp)...like. 

Here are my 2 favorite plastic toys.

Magna Doodle / Doodle Pro

Despite what they are made of, I actually consider these toys green.  Huck loves to draw and practice letters on these, which saves a ton of paper.  He even has a tiny one for the car.  They are pretty durable toys and I expect the ones we have to last for years to come and possible even be put up with the best of the wooden toys for future generations to enjoy.

Grocery Store Stacking Cups

These little suckers cost between $1.99 and $3.99 depending on the store.  Ours are The First Years brand.  Both of my kids have LOVED these cups.  Babies love them to pieces.  They are a great size for little hands, easy to grab and hold, bang together, nest and stack and take with you in your purse or diaper bag.  But Huck still plays with them in the bathtub and shower.  He uses them as boats and stands and even furniture when he builds things with blocks.  They are really versatile. 

Honorable mention goes to:

Hardware store flashlights

From the time Huck was about 2 he's had a couple of small plastic flashlights.  He uses them in some way almost every day.  And bonus, there's always a flashlight handy when we need one!

What plastic toys do you love despite the look and fears of toxic materials?

Family Movie Matinee

Here in Teton Valley, it's an hour drive to a real indoor movie theatre and with a 7 month old that's not somewhere I want to be anyway. We love going to the Spud Drive-In, but the movie starts at dark-thirty and that's not until 9:30ish these days, so that means keeping Huck up over 2 hours past his usual bedtime and THEN starting a movie.  It will be a huge thrill when he's a little older but no thanks on that right now.  So I thought it would be fun to have a little Matinee Drive-In movie at home.

I had seen this amazing drive-in idea on Katharine Marie Photography and knew I'd be stoked to even achieve a small fraction the cuteness of her set up.

We didn't do any of the adorable games or activities, just an Saturday afternoon movie (Bolt, which was a little old for him but he still enjoyed), a cardboard box "car", and popcorn in homemade brown paper popcorn bags.  Huck thought it was really fun.  He enjoyed using real money to pay Pooh Bear, who ran the concession stand.  I also made simple tickets out of card stock, which he excitedly carried around for an hour before the show started.  Jemima did not watch the movie, we played and nursed instead.

I just have to share that while making the popcorn bags and trying to talk to Huck at the same time I had a bit of a slip of the pen and came very close serving my family Porn Corn.  Oops.  Sometimes multi-taking ain't all it's cracked up to be.

Never made Popcorn from scratch without the microwave or a special gizmo?  Here's my simple recipe for perfect popcorn with no burning and very few, if any unpopped kernels..

Perfect Popcorn 

(though it will now be referred to as Porn Corn at our house)

2/3 cup of popcorn kernels
6 Tbsp of Canola Oil
Salt
4 Tbsp Butter (1/2 a stick)

This amount almost perfectly fills a large 6 qt dutch oven.  We ate it all but for what it's worth my parents say we're "big eaters."

Put oil in lidded pot and drop in 2 or 3 kernels.  Turn on medium-high heat and wait for the test kernels to pop.

Here's the big secret to popping ALL the kernels... Once the test kernels pop, remove the pot from heat and dump in all kernels.   Give it stir.  Wait 30 seconds with it off the heat and then return the pot to the heat.  

No need to shake until they start popping in earnest, then keep the pot moving until the popping slows to 2-3 seconds between pop.  Remove from heat.  Let cool.

In the meantime, melt butter.  Pour over popcorn, salt liberally, toss.  Eat it up.

Even though I caught my little Porn Corn slip, we still did the thing with our own personal flare.

Activity Jar

The 3 to 4 year old set can be a tad, well, obsessive about certain games.  Have you noticed this?  Huck will wear something out for about 2 weeks and then, POOF, it's gone.

It doesn't help that my brain is mush.  If Huck gets off of a game or an activity for a while I can forget it ever even existed.  Stephen is the same way.  We all fall into these ruts where we're doing the same 3 to 5 things with him over and over, which inevitably gets very tiresome and can take the fun out of playing.  "Let's pretend to be pirates who find buried gold" gets a tad stale after the 168th go 'round. 

"What?  A treasure chest?  Under this big X?  Who would have ever imagined?"  If the little feller could just change up the script from time to time to keep things lively it wouldn't be so bad, but my boy corrects you if you say your part a little differently than you did the very first time.  You gotta take notes or be constantly repremanded by a pint-sized Cecil B. Demille

And it's not just us.  Most of the time Huck has no problem deciding what to play, but occasionally even he wanders around at a loss for what to do.

So when I saw Jean's Spring Fun Box on The Artful Parent and then a few months later her post about a friend's Doorway into Summer, that was all the inspiration I needed.  Of course, I did it myyyyyy waaaay!

This is our new activity jar.

It helps get us out of play ruts, reminds us of loved but forgotten games and toys and gives us a focal point when one of us is at a loss for what to do next.  Oh, and Huck thinks it's way cool.

Below is a quick sampling of the kind of activities I included--not all of them because I think I ended up with close to 60!  I tried to go with things that could be set up easily.  Things I would have no trouble saying YES to.  A whole jar of YESES!  Can you imagine?  That's hard.  And okay, some of the yeses might be through clenched teeth. 

• Work Mazes
• Watercolor
• Make Muffins
• Play in the Sandbox
• Write a Book
• Play Dress Up
• Collage
• Play Soccer
• Call My Cousins
• Play Story Dice
• Beanbag Games
• Lace and Bead
• Make Popsicles
• Play a Board Game
• Go to the Library
• Build with Blocks
• Go on a Nature Walk
• Finger Paint
• Play with Play Dough
• Invite a Friend Over
• Count Things
• Play a Card Game
• Hunt for Bugs
• Play Soccer                             

You get the idea.  It's all doable stuff, but stuff you sometimes can't come up with between laundry and dinner.  And they're activities I already know are winners.  I thought Jean was right on with her Spring Box by not making the activities things that require a ton of prep, set up, time or clean up.  They are mainly things he already loves to do. 

And yet, The Doorway into Summer idea is also a great one for that bigger list of outings and special things that you can set aside a specific time to take on--going to the drive-in, having a camp out, etc.

Now there are a few items in our jar that can't just be done any old time.  I can't wisk Huck off to the library if Jemima is upstairs napping, or stop and make muffins 5 minutes before dinner is ready.  But you can always do something to set an activity in motion so that your ready to do it at the next available time.  You can write out a special invitation or ticket to go to the library at 3pm, then let them pick another activity for "right now."  You can set out all the ingredients for muffins so you're ready to make them right after dinner or first thing the next morning and then let them pick again.  I'd be careful about going the "that's not a good one, put it back" or "we can't do that, let's pick again."  Try to do something that makes it seem like you're doing each activity even if it's just a place holder or you're child will think that's part of it and start saying they don't want to do certain things. 

And hey, that may happen ayway over time.  Right now Huck is so thrilled with the activity jar that he'd eat asparagus and brush his teeth if it was written on colorful card stock. 

Now there's an idea.

Cheap & Easy :: Button Snake

Welcome One Crafty Place readers!

I haven't done anything Cheap & Easy in a while (Unless you ask my husband.  Waka Waka.) so when I saw this Montessori inspired project a few weeks ago on my friend's blog One Hook Wonder I knew it would be one of the first things I made when I got home from our big roadtrip.

Turns out the mommy blogs are silly with these little things.  Check out various other incarnations here, here & here, too.  Color me surprised.  I'd never even seen them before. 

It's a great way to teach preschoolers the complex practical life skill of buttoning and unbuttoning while having a whiz bang of a time.

You can pretty much get the idea of how to do this just by looking at the thing but here are some basic instructions for the...well...craft challenged.  There's nothing to be ashamed about (bless your heart).

Materials:

One big button
A length of ribbon
A bunch of felt
Needle & thread/embroidery floss

1. Fold the ribbon down and sew the button to the top.

2. Cut a bunch of felt squares.  Use the button you choose to determine the size of square that will be best.

3.  Snip a slit in each little felt square.  Again, use your button as your guide.  You can certainly use any type of heavy-ish fabric but the nice thing about using felt is there won't be any fraying over time.

4. Take one square and slide it down to the bottom, leaving about 2 inches of "tail" at the bottom.  Sew that ribbon to that square on both sides.  This is your base.  Other examples may have done this differently, or even left the bottom "open," but this is how I chose to do it.

5.  Put it all on a plate or in a small basket and let 'em string it up.

This project took less than 30 minutes and I made two.  Huck loved doing this and got really good at it very quickly. 

This game might not have a super long life but you can always pass it along to a younger friend or sibling.  And don't waste the first time your child uses this.  It takes concentration.  Set your child up just before you need to start making dinner.  Show them how to do a few of them and then marvel from across the room as they work on it "all by myself" for the next half hour!

TIP:  Another great opportunity for your child to practice new buttoning skills without making a thing is when you wash bedding.   If you use duvet covers on your beds, assign your child the task of unbuttoning them, and then rebuttoning them again once the duvets are washed.  It's like having a free Montessori dressing frame in every room.

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If you liked this, you'll like the other Cheap & Easy projects.

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Cheap & Easy :: Story Dice

Caw Caw!  Welcome back to all you Crafty Craw readers!

And anyone visiting from GoodyBlog, too!

I made a great new travel toy/game to take on our road trip!  I'm so proud of this.  I think it'is my new favorite thing I've made for Huck.  I like it even more than my beanbags! 

Story Dice.

I first saw these on Etsy--that perennial fount of fabulous ideas.  If you're not inclined to make something like this yourself I encourage you to check out Mamaroots.  Her's are hand stamped and really gorgeous.  I would have liked mine to have that same simple, graphic style and not be so cutsy & cartoonish but that's just how I draw.

I bought the 1 1/4 inch cubes from Casey's Wood (25 cents each) but I'm sure they're available at any craft supply store.  I sanded the corners a bit and painted with acrylics.  You could also use rubber stamps like Mamaroots.  In fact, you could even glue on magazine cutouts or stickers if you don't draw.  Once the paint dried, I rubbed in some natural bees wax to seal them and make them look nice.

I sewed up a simple drawstring bag to keep the story dice in and we'll be breaking them out at restaurants on the road trip as a way to occupy Huck while we wait for food. 

You can play with as many or as few dice as you want and with as many players as you want.  I did 3 with the idea that we'll each (me, Stephen & Huck) have our own die.

Here's the basic game:  You roll the story dice one at a time.  The first person to roll starts a story based on the first thing to come up. 

Once upon a time there was a little house mouse.  Her name was Petunia and she suffered from Seasonal Affective Disorder.  It seemed that no matter what she did she just couldn't shake an abiding feeling that spring would never come. 

It's the group's decision (or the tyrannical preschooler--whichever you prefer) as to when the next person takes a turn and rolls.  Then they continue by adding in whatever they rolled to the story.

She got her hair done and she bought some new shoes but nothing seemed to make her feel better.  One day she found a great big cupcake with pink frosting and sprinkles and everything!  She thought to herself,  "Surely this will make me feel better!" and she gobbled up the whole thing.  Even the crumbs.  But after a brief sugar high, she found that she was just as blue as before.  Perhaps even more.

Then the next person rolls and you just keep on going round and round like this until someone decides it's time to end the story, or the quesadillas get there, whichever comes first.

So Petunia finally decided that if spring wouldn't come to her, she would go to spring.  She started digging through all her belonging (she was a bit of a pack rat) and finally found what she needed.  A beach ball.  She grabbed the beach ball, the sunscreen, and her new spring shoes, loaded up all her little mice and headed to East Hampton.  Even though it was still a little chilly there, it's better than 10 below and snowing.  The end.

I aimed for a good variety of potential characters, vehicles, places and objects to build stories around and mainly tried to stick with simple shapes I knew I could freehand.  A boy, a girl, frog, butterfly, rabbit & mouse.  A car, boat & bike.  A tree, a house and a river.  A beach ball, cupcake, teacup, hat and an egg.  I also did a question mark on one side.  I mainly did this because I ran out of ideas but I actually do think it'll be a fun roll.

This is a great game for introducing young children to storytelling but I think it can be used by older kids, too.  I can imagine that with older kids you'll be rolling less to keep the story going, you know?  I also think you could adapt this game to holidays or seasons.  Halloween dice with bats and witches and haunted houses would be very fun.  So would Christmas dice with elves, wrapped presents and candy canes and such.  In fact, mine are a big springy so maybe this will be the first in a series.  You never know.

This game has so much going for it.  It encourages creativity.  It's easy, cheap and handmade.  It's not messy or loud and it doesn't have lots of pieces to lose.  It's also compact.  It's the perfect toy to keep in your car, your purse or your child's backpack.  It's easy to take out and to keep up with at restaurants or even out shopping--two kids can play this anywhere.  It would also make a wonderful gift, stocking stuffer or addition to a goodie bag.  It's really got it all. 

Now, after all that hype, I sure hope Huck likes it in action as much as I like it in theory.  I'll let you know!

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For more stuff like this check out these sections of my blog:

Toys & Games and Cheap & Easy

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Collage Kit Birthday Present

Hello and welcome to everyone visiting from One Crafty Place and Kiddio!

I put a collage kit together for Huck recently using a tackle box and craft supplies my mom sent from the dollar store.  Not only was it a big hit with Huck, this is now going to be my easy "go to" birthday gift for little kids.

The supplies consisted of puff balls, pipe cleaners, popsicle sticks, googly eyes, sequins, tissue paper
& some foam dinosaurs.  All in, my mother assures me it was under $10 worth of goodies.  I filled Huck's box with a good amount of stuff but have a ton of everything left in assorted baggies in our craft drawer.

Next time I get a birthday invitation in the mail I'll pick up a small tackle box at my local hardware store (Walmart or Target for those of you in the civilized world) for under $10.  Then I'll just load that sucker up with supplies from my stash, add a pair of child's scissors and a big glue stick from the grocery store for another $3-4 and tie a big bow onto the handle.  If you have paint pens or paints on hand, write the birthday boy or girl's name on the  top of the box, too.

Then--Abracadabra!--a personalized, fun, engaging and inexpensive gift for any young child.

It's a really awesome sidekick to his Art Supply Caddy, too.

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Be sure to check out our collage kit in action and this other great gift idea for kids.

And while you're here, have a look at some of the other fun Toys and Games we've made.

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30 minute babysitter

A little weekend gift for you.  Teach your 3-5 year old kid to hit the play button on the computer and show them this...

You're welcome.

Dress up time!

I offer hope for those who have never won a blog giveaway.  I finally won a one!  My first.  And not just any old blog giveaway either.  A real wing-dinger! 

I won a dress up set from The Little Travelers!!

Sinbad sails the sea! 

Think he likes it? 

This is the Traveler's Set.  As I pulled piece after piece from the bag, even my husband was astonished.  Huck was absolutely apoplectic.  I just can't recommend these sets enough.  They're just about the most fabulous, open-ended toys for children that I can imagine.  I have to say, while he loves his reversible knight/king costume, cowboy costume and clown things, this set is getting lots more play at the moment.  There's just so dang much to do with it.  Perhaps this will be the kick in the butt I need to finish his set of kool-aid dyed play silks. 

Now I'm looking for a good way to store all his wonderful costumes so they don't end up covered in cat hair.  I love this and this with all my heart, but don't have the room or the resources at present.  Until we outgrow it we'll be using this really cool 1940s suitcase a friend recently gave us.  Thanks, Ginny! 

And if you haven't ever checked out The Little Traveler's blog, you really should.  They are 2 young girls who travel the world with their Mom immersing themselves in foreign cultures.  Along the way they shoot and narrate videos of their travels which are also available on their website.  We have The Little Travelers in Japan (which is amazing!) and The British Isles (which we're saving for a bit).  There's also a Bali DVD and the DVD of their trip to Iran will be available soon.  These are great and truly educational DVDs for kids.

A satisfied fan.  Thanks Little Travelers!

Cheap & Easy :: Fabric Matching Game

Welcome Crafty Crow readers!

A while back I came across this cool fabric matching game from Montessori & Such.  While I didn't feel like I had the time to make the domino set I knew I could make this game FAST AND FOR FREE!  All you need is enough scrap fabric to make 2 swatches of each different texture and some pinking sheers!

A little cotton, a little linen, a little corduroy, a little denim, some satin, canvas, and flannel.  This is a great use of scraps from your sewing & craft projects or even old clothing.  There's a little bit of superhero cape, tablecloth, knight's tunic and one of Stephen's old shirts in our set.  This game is to fabric what stew is to your fridge!  Use what you've got.

You can start off letting them look at the fabric as they match it up.  Basically, let them match according to colors and patterns and get a feel for the different textures.  Talk about each one and use a variety of descriptive words. They'll quickly be ready to try it blindfolded and match according to texture only. 

Big Fun.

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If you like this idea, check my Cheap & Easy page for more like it.

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CPSIA Update

In case you didn't already know, much of the CPSIA legislation has been postponed for a year.  I think the news hit the day after my big post about it.  I knew my involvement would scare the shit out of them.  It was probably the terse email in which I threatened to buy black market wooden baby rattles that did it. 

Anyway, I haven't had time to read up on the exact details yet.  Some of it will go into effect as planned on February 10th, but the testing that was going to put small toymakers out of business is being shelved pending further review.

Yippee!  More adorable wooden toadstools and felt bananas for everyone!

You can read more about it here and here.