We don’t buy our 5 year old toys other than cars & trucks.
It’s not that we are tyrants, but I firmly believe there are plenty of avenues for entertaining our children with everyday items available at home!
I *truly* believe that *most* toys available at stores aren’t even half as interesting or attention holding as our projects that I share here. What happens when you have only a few, if not no toys at home? Your kids won’t have the sense of entitlement. They won’t get frustrated with too many options. They won’t beg, nag or throw a tantrum when they’re in a store. They’ll love their few toys even more.
Do you really want to give them something to play with? Give them a box full of grains or coffee beans
Have cars but not a track? Build it!
Do they love drawing big? Allow them to use dry erase markers on the glass windows
Do they hate art? Let them paint with bubbles
Do they love art? Let them draw with sticker prompts
Have they been ignoring chalks and the black board? Give em some sandpaper
Are they uninterested in books? Bring out some puppets
Do they love pretend play? Get them a real Stethoscope, the one that can actually hear heart beats
Are they bored of going to the park? Take along a set of hand lens & binoculars
Bored of same old colouring books? Add some glitter, shaving cream of powdered milk in paints.
I have 75+ Projects on Art alone! The key element is *practicality*, i.e. materials required are usually easy on the pocket, easy to acquire, easy to prep. The down side however is the mess! But like I constantly tell people, the more mess you allow them to make, the lesser it will get progressively!
I'm Swapna & I have a background in business management but have been a trailing spouse since we moved to Indonesia and our kid came into our lives. After briefly moving back to India, we recently moved to Chile. So like Debra Ollivier recommends in "What French Women Know", I’m focusing on having a life than be hard pressed on making a living!
So when he is at school, I *try* hard to *try* to brush up some Spanish. Just that every time I try to translate a word to Spanish, the Bahasa Indonesian word pops up first! I hope I learn enough to get by! Más vino por favour and dónde están los servicios kind of deal!
But when he comes back from school, I happily change him into his raggedy rags, to spend a warm afternoon in our sunny art room.
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