Rice Box Fun

Now that fall is upon us and the weather is cooling down, are you struggling to find indoor activities for your kids?  One simple way I have found to keep my little guy entertained while we're trying to cook or do dishes is a rice box.  I fondly remember these from when I was in kindergarten.  The one at school was large enough to fit several kids around it, but since this one is just for Chris, I found an old plastic storage bin we're no longer using and rounded up all of our nearly empty bags of rice that had been sitting around for who knows how long. 

He already had some diggers, dump trucks and bulldozers that went perfectly with the rice box but if you don't have those at home, you can grab just about any toy that can hold some rice (bath toys would probably work great) or measuring spoons and cups.  Kids love to just scoop the rice up, run it through their fingers and then dump it out.  My goal was to create a fun activity for him that cost me little or no money.  It seems that those are the ones that he often enjoys the most.  I can't tell you how many toys we thought he would love that are just collecting dust now.

If you don't have rice at your house, you could also use dried beans.  We put a bunch of lima beans in a plastic storage bin for him when he was a baby since it's good to introduce different textures to little ones.  Just be sure you watch them closely if your kids like to put things in their mouths.  We were lucky because we didn't really have to worry about that with our son, but there were still some occasions when we'd see those little fingers go into his mouth without knowing what exactly he was holding.

Hope this has given you some ideas for great indoor activities for your kids.  I'm hoping to get my son into drawing and coloring soon so we can setup a little art station.  If you've come up with fun and creative ways to keep your little ones entertained, I'd love to hear about it!

Thanks for stopping by,

Michelle