What funny things have your kids done to entertain themselves?

[Tap]

I have spent all morning on the computer shopping for a wood doll house for dd3. I am looking at expensive Plan doll houses all the way to used ones on Craigslist. I am alternatively looking at Quadzilla and other wood toys for her main Christmas toy. (She is a very hard kid to shop for).

 

I say this to make this point.

 

 

Dd3 just spent the last 30 minutes running in circles around the loop in our house. She found a cast off spool of ribbon, and started running. The ribbon is just long enough that when she runs, she can see and chase the cardboard spool dragging on the other end. It is like watching a dog chase his own tail. :lol:

 

 

So, why am I sitting her shopping for expensive toys...when all she really needs is a cast off spool of ribbon? I am here in one of those amazing moments of mommyhood where you see it all sooo clear. The best toys are discovered...not made. I just wish that I could not buy that Christmas present, but I know .... I will. To capture some dream of a Christmas morning, with presents to ooooo and ahhh the kids, that are cast off and the boxes becoming the real toy. :willy_nilly:

 

 

 

What have your kids discovered lately?

[Strawberry Queen]

My almost 9 yo.(her b-day tomorrow) spent about 1/2 an hour running up and down the hallway with balloons tied with curly ribbon trailing behind her. She was taking her 5 "dogs" for a walk.:D She's done this multiple times since her party. It's too cute.

 

BTW, I *love* the Plan dollhouses. I so wanted them for my girls one Christmas but I had found a FP Loving Family dreamhome with furniture and people at a garage sale during the summer for $20 so I opted out. Darn! Why did I go to garage sales???:lol:

[BridgeTea]

I spied my 11yo outside the other day blowing bubbles.

 

Then leaping around popping them.

 

With a pipe cleaner "stinger" attached to the back belt loop of her jeans.

 

:001_huh: :lol: It looked like it took a lot of coordination.

[FairProspects]

Earlier this week my 5 y.o. stripped to his skivvies, put a large rubber band around his waist, pulled some pink feathers out of my boa, taped them to his forehead with scotch tape and pronounced himself "Squanto". :lol:

 

I wanted to take pictures, but I thought that might qualify as child abuse later in life :D.

[Natalieclare]

The single most used "toy" item at our house is: the dirt pile. When we first had our garden dirt delivered, I worried I had overbought. Ha. I am soooo thrilled we had extra dirt--Milo has spent hours and hours on that pile.

[Doodle]

Doodle will ask for every box or container I empty. He will wear cereal boxes on his feet. Boxes are turned into houses for his stuff animals. Some end up on his head. I finished a bottle of dish detergent. He wanted in for his next bath toy. We are moving in 3 weeks. He is eagerly waiting to have the wardrobe boxes when we are done with them. He has a very large fort in mind that he wants to construct.

[Jenn in Mo]

Earlier this week my 5 y.o. stripped to his skivvies, put a large rubber band around his waist, pulled some pink feathers out of my boa, taped them to his forehead with scotch tape and pronounced himself "Squanto". :lol:

 

I wanted to take pictures, but I thought that might qualify as child abuse later in life :D.

 

I love this.

 

But I want to hear more about your pink boa! What occasions call for this? :D

[MeanestMomInMidwest]

The single most used "toy" item at our house is: the dirt pile. When we first had our garden dirt delivered, I worried I had overbought. Ha. I am soooo thrilled we had extra dirt--Milo has spent hours and hours on that pile.

 

Same here, except it is a huge pile of sand that is (was) supposed to be pushed into the half of the barn that doesn't have concrete. The sand tracked through my house almost makes me rethink my "living at the beach" fantasy. All summer, whenever we were looking for the kids (or the neighbor kids) all we had to do was check the sandpile.

[gfam]

How funny. What a great kid.

[MaMa2005]

DH is down with the flu and is not a very good patient :glare:. So I asked DS to play quietly and not get out all the toys. I hear very little noise from the playroom/sunroom. When I take a peak, DS has taken 2 bungee cords and looped them through two chairs on wheels. He is now the train conductor. He spent over an hour telling the train to 'choo choo' quietly.

[coralloyd]

My girls have started a game called "Upside Down and Backwards World". They drew a ceiling fan on paper and taped it to the floor. They make beds and pretend to sleep with their feet on the pillows and the blankets over their heads :lol:. They have come up with all kinds of great ideas for "Upside Down and Backwards World".

[ChristusG]

About a year ago, when DD was 4, we were at my parents house eating dinner (as we do every Thursday evening). DD lined up everyone's crocs (about 3 pair of them) and proceeded to fill each one with marbles. She spent a good 45 minutes moving the marbles from croc to croc and back again.

 

I often ask myself why I purchase actual toys? :confused:

[FairProspects]

I love this.

 

But I want to hear more about your pink boa! What occasions call for this? :D

 

Hee Hee. The boa was for a "Check Your Boobies Party" last month at MOPS. We were supposed to get as much pink as possible, and it ended up looking like a bottle of Pepto threw up on the room :D. It was a lot of fun though. Now I just wear it around the house as the princess I am :lol:!

[ElizabethB]

They do all kinds of crazy things with just paper and tape.

 

The funniest thing, though, was when my son was 2 and played with ice, ice tongs, a bucket, and a glass for almost an hour. It was at a baby shower, everyone said that they knew what to get the baby when he was 2!

[Snickerdoodle]

They do all kinds of crazy things with just paper and tape.

 

 

 

and string.

[AngieC]

We just got an American Girl doll catalog yesterday. My daughter, who never plays with dolls, declared she wanted a doll that dressed like her, to which I replied no. She continued flipping through the catalog and found a doll wearing a dress very similar to one she already owns. She then proceeded to go upstairs, put on the dress and cut the picture of the doll out of the catalog. She put the doll in a basket and carried her around for a couple of hours. She even made me put a blanket over her before bed. Her name is Princess Sparkle and I suspect she provided just as much entertainment as one of the $100 dolls would have!

[ElizabethB]

and string.

 

I don't allow string yet, maybe when my 4 year old is 5 or 6 and I don't have to worry about him choking his sister or something crazy.

 

But, if I did allow string, I'm sure they would add that in the mix and come up with even crazier things.

[melissel]

:lol::lol::lol:

 

This thread is killing me! Lately DDs have been putting my thick oven mitts on their hands and "boxing," which actually starts to look much more like a mixed martial arts match about halfway in. But my favorite story is about DD7. When she was 5 or so, I was on the phone for (apparently) longer than I should have been. I came back into the living room to find that she had taken one of the very large, firm, rectangular cushions from the seat of the couch and was running across the dining room with it, crashing into the wall, and falling down laughing hysterically :001_huh: Fortunately, the pillow was bigger than she was, and the dining room is short, so she couldn't pick up too much speed. It was bizarre and very funny! She's developed quite a vaudevillian personality, that one :rolleyes:

[newlifemom]

A couple of weeks ago we were getting ready to go to co-op. Ds 7 had two baseball hats on. One the correct way and one backwards. I told him, no baseball hats at co-op and for goodness sakes only one at a time. Later that day I found out he was trying to be a detective like Sherlock Holmes.:D

 

And as for the Indian. Once when the same son then 3 was very into Robin Hood and knights he walked into the room after I had been on the phone for waayyyyyyy too long. He had stripped down to his diaper. Had a hanger [read bow] hung on the front, an old plastic flag staff [read lance] in the side of the diaper and for his drumsticks [read quiver of arrows], well . . .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

you didn't see them until he turned to leave. :lol::001_huh::lol:

 

FTR: I did take pics, but I won't post 'em here. :D

[Jumping In Puddles]

My kids take the plastic grocery bags and "dress up" in them. They each take one and put two leg holes in the bottom and the straps go over their shoulders like overalls. Then they tie bags on to each others arm straps (in the back) that fill with air as they run. They LOVE doing this and it cracks me up!

Edited November 16, 2009 by Jumping In Puddles

[Jumping In Puddles]

This thread also reminds me of these: Warning Stickers that should come with all toys in the toy store!

 

 

 

[BridgeTea]

:iagree: So funny and so true!

[the4Rs]

DD and DS have recently gotten into knighthood. They grab my spatulas (swords) and lids for some of my pots (shields) and they duel all around the house. My son thinks it is more fun to beat each other with their shields. :001_huh:

 

We have a lot of costumes in the dress up box but I'll admit that when I pull some of their own clothes out and mix and match to create some new character they have way more fun in those than if they were wearing premade costumes. For instance: my son and daughter love Star Wars. My son is a huge Anakin fan so I pulled some of his khaki pants out, found one of his sisters big blue shirts and grabbed an ace bandage for the "belt" around his waist. And he wears his sister's old robe and he looks a lot like Anakin Skywalker. My daughter likes Asoka so I pulled a purple skirt out and a funky vest someone gave her and pulled out a white slip for a long skirt and pulled her hair up in two high pig tails, pulled the white slip over her hair and it looks like Asoka's hair. They played for hours like that and it didn't cost me a dime. :D

[Doodle]

My kids take the plastic grocery bags and "dress up" in them. They each take one and put two leg holes in the bottom and the straps go over there shoulders like overalls. Then they tie bags on to each others arm straps (in the back) that fill with air as they run. They LOVE doing this and it cracks me up!

 

After watching Stomp Live on Netflix (great, great show!) a few days ago, Doodle has been playing with plastic grocery bags too. The Stomp crew used the bags in their performance. Today when I woke up, I found bags all over. He said he was having a bag party.

[Kristine in KS]

My kids play dress up a lot and add the rags from my clean rag box into the dress up mix. For some reason, they love using the rags as hoods, skirts, etc. My 3 y/o just lets the bigger ones dress her up however they want. We cleaned out my grandma's house this summer and found a lot of aprons. The girls use those for everything dress up.

 

They also play library a lot, setting up a check out area, hold area, dividing the books into categories, making library cards with paper, taking turns being the librarian

 

They pretty much recreate a lot of places we go including the "security" area after a recent plane trip.

 

I love this benefit of homeschooling and limited TV/computer time.

 

We went to the Chicago Children's Museum recently and they had a whole room dedicated to fort building. They sewed elastic tabs on the corner of sheets and knobs to the sides of chairs and hall trees. The kids could move the furniture and sheets around and make all kinds of forts. It was a popular place at the museum.

[~Tara~]

Mine could push each other in my laundry baskets alllll day. They enjoy dressing the baby up in whatever attire fits the day, then load him up in the basket with pillows and blankets and up and down the hall they go...squealing all the way.

 

My elder 3 have taken to making weapons out of everything. Every stick found has been turned into a bow or carved into a sword. They have some nice work going on there, I must say. The biggest draw back to this 'fun' would be the skewers to the face as they have been thrust by aforementioned homemade bows ;)

 

The girl will giggle wildly over simply tossing herself into the big chair or flipping upside down from its seat.

 

I'm sure there's more, but hubs just walked in...so off I go....... :)

[Scarlett]

When my son was that age and even a bit older he would take 6" paper plates, paint faces on them, and call them his 'friends.' Sad huh?

 

He really wanted siblings.

[Scarlett]

This thread also reminds me of these: Warning Stickers that should come with all toys in the toy store!

 

 

 

 

Love these. Thank you!

[Dawn in OH]

My two year old runs around the house with the vacuum cleaner's crevice tool attachment waving it around and calling it a sword. He puts a large Rubbermaid bucket on his head for a helmet.

 

And here I was going to buy him a sword and armor set for Christmas.