Cabin fever with a toddler - Part 2!

Cabin Fever with a toddler - Part 2!!!
(2/12/10)

Well we have been stuck in the house for exactly 7 days now (one week) and I have to say that I am about to go insane. In one week we got 43" of snow....now to put that into perspective for everyone the average counter top height in a kitchen is 36" so go stand next to your counter and imagine the snow being 7" taller than that!!!!! Add to that the gusting winds and 6ft+ snow drifts and the fact that I live in the boonies down a 2 mile DIRT road that the state seems to always forget about I don't think I will be getting out into civilization until at least Sunday!

Luckily I stocked up on craft supplies before the snow, so Jacob and I have been able to make a few things. Some of the crafts are from the "The Toddler Busy Book" and some are from my head, and then of course some are from other blogs that I read. Here are a few of the successes that we have found!

The snow is waaaay too high for Jacob to play in so why not bring the snow indoors! He played for an hour and a half with this snow, and is currently playing with another batch of "sink snow" while I sit here and type this post!



Jacob just loved the contact paper craft we did a few days ago so thought of something new! I took a paper plate and cut a heart shape out of the middle of it. I then took a square of contact paper and stuck it to the underside of the plate so that the sticky part was facing up. Then Jacob took red/white colored sugar and red/white sprinkles and put them on the sticky contact paper. Once he was done, he colored the outside edges with his paint pens and then I put another square of contact paper over the exposed sprinkles so that they wouldn't fall off. It makes for a great suncatcher!!
This next idea is a combo of two or three different ideas that I have gotten from all over the place including the book mentioned above and from other blogs. This is Jacobs treasure box. I went to the local warehouse shopping center and bought a 10lb bag of rice, went to the dollar store and bought a bunch of small "treasures" and voila!! You have yourself a treasure box. Now please keep in mind if you do this to put this box on a sheet or something to catch the mess! I turned this into a learning game as well. We are working on our colors so the other day I made a piece of paper with the color purple on it and it was Jacob's goal to find all of the purple balls and put them on the paper! It worked pretty good, and I bought these balls in 5 different colors so will be able to do this color paper project many more times!


Finally I got this idea from another blog (and for the life of me can't find the link for it, sorry!) but this was done using a pack of $.99 cent wooden beads and a $.99 heart ice cube tray from Target. Jacob uses a big spoon to scoop the balls from the bowl into each of the openings in the tray. It took him awhile to get the hang of it, but it is building his patience and fine motor skills!

Last but not least, does any toddler NOT love a box fort! Need I say more???