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Entertaining a preschooler on a budget


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I'm starting to feel that the days of schooling while ds naps will come to an end before I am ready. I've read several threads and blogs about things homeschool moms use to entertain 3-4yo's while schooling other kids. However, they all involve buying lots of different things, like lacing beads and other items that can become quite costly. So here is my question: If you don't have much to spend, what would you buy?

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I'm starting to feel that the days of schooling while ds naps will come to an end before I am ready. I've read several threads and blogs about things homeschool moms use to entertain 3-4yo's while schooling other kids. However, they all involve buying lots of different things, like lacing beads and other items that can become quite costly. So here is my question: If you don't have much to spend, what would you buy?

My dd could spend hours playing in bubbles at the sink. She loved to wash dishes and make a mess. It was much more fun when I quit worrying about the mess and let her do what she wanted with the bubbles. It was an easy clean up and was one of the only things that really kept her occupied.

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My son loved rice and beans. I got high-rimmed baking sheets and let him use different media to transfer rice and beans (separately, not ever at the same sitting LOL) from one container to another. Teaspoons, plastic spoons, plastic bottle caps, measuring cups, plastic cups ... fingers LOL. Around 3-4 years old, chopsticks or tongs.

 

My daughter loved beads and shoelace. I bought a huge $5 bag of beads at a craft store, using a coupon and a teacher discount brought it down to $2. We re-used them over and over again; still have several of them LOL. She'd string them onto shoelaces, which were also pretty cheap (I got lots from friends and family who were discarding shoes, plus garage sales) and could also be re-used. Everything was recycled back into the original container after play.

 

For inexpensive ideas, look to yahoo groups or do an internet search for something like "montessori preschool on a budget" -- I got tons of good ideas that way. I can't recall the name of it now, but I bought a spiral-bound idea book at one of the Catholic homeschool conventions. I referenced it a lot. Maybe someone else knows the name of it. I lent my copy out a few years ago and hmm - never had it returned LOL.

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A few things my kiddos did once-upon-a-time...

 

Yes to beans and rice play. Muffin tins are useful too. You can have a child sort all of the different kinds of beans from a $1 bag of mixed bean soup into the different muffin cups. (And as long as they do it with clean hands on a clean table, you can salvage the beans to make dinner another time -- less a few that might be lost to the floor.)

 

Make large pinch tongs from a pair of disposable chopsticks using these directions. Then have your child move cotton balls, craft pompoms, or marshmallows from one bowl to another. If you use mini colored marshmallows or the craft pompoms, you can have her sort by color as well.

 

You can also set out a variety of small glasses and bowls (creamers or other tiny pitchers are good -- even wine glasses, if you won't be heartbroken if something happens to them) and put a little water in a few (but not all) of them. Add a couple of drops of food coloring to some (but not all) of the water. Then use medicine droppers (saved from old medicine containers or begged at the pharmacy, etc) in different sizes if you have them. Show your child how to pour carefully from one container to another. Show her how to use the dropper to move a little liquid at a time from one to another. Let her see how the colors mix. ... And yes, 3yos *can* learn to do this without spelling or breaking. I always put a kitchen towel or paper towels down under the cups and things, but it doesn't take long for a child to learn how to work carefully.

 

If you bake bread (and there are many simple recipes even if you're not already a baker), make up a batch and let it rise the first time. Then let her work with it (clean hands and work surface, of course) like play dough. She can pound and squash and play for as long as she likes, then you can bake whatever creation she ends with and let that be afternoon snack. It'll keep her occupied twice over and make her feel very accomplished.

 

Sidewalk chalk is cheap. Usually you can find buckets of it at the $1 store. Rather than giving her the whole bucket, dole out 3-4 pieces at a time and store them in a plastic baggy. That way you've got a long supply of "new" chalk whenever she wears out old pieces. (If you give her the bucket, they're likely to end up broken sooner...)

 

Give her a wide, shallow dish with just a sprinkling of cornmeal in it. Then give her a few small plastic toys. A fork will make nice tracks through the "sand". A plastic dinosaur can stalk across the dessert. She can also practice drawing letters in the sand. Shake the dish to redistribute the cornmeal evenly, then draw a letter for her. Show her how to use her first two fingers (this will help her as she learns proper pencil grip later) to trace the letter you drew while saying the sound of the letter. After she's done it a few times, shake the cornmeal even again and challenge her to try to make the letter herself. You might start with the first letter of her name. Or you might start with an easy one like "ssssss, like ssssssssnake" or "mmmmmmm, like mmmmmmountains" since the pictures and sounds can be so easily associated.

 

Make a ball of masking tape (or, if you have a light plastic ball like a wiffle ball or pingpong ball, you can use those) and tape to the end of a piece of yarn or string. Tape it in a doorway and about her eye level and encourage her to bat at it, or catch and toss to someone else, if you're available to play.

 

Use a hole punch and punch holes around the edge of a piece of cardboard. (Or draw a simple picture and punch the holes along the edge of the picture.) Use a shoelace or piece of string with the end reinforced by masking tape to "sew" through the holes. She can go up/down through the holes or through and around the side.

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