One thing I've quickly learned about this age is that Evie has two speeds - glacially slow and GO GO GO! We've got nothing in between. And, the vast majority of the time, it's Go-Mode. From the second she wakes up and sees that Mella is green (post on who Mella is here - she's a lifesaver for this mama's mornings), it's full steam ahead. Realizing this, I've made a few adjustments to my routine. The first is getting up an hour or so before Evie (hello hot coffee & devotions!), and the next is these busy boxes.
One of my favorite websites to follow on Instagram is The Mama Notes. It is full of beautiful, creative content and easy ways to make space to play with your kids. I've watched several iterations of these busy box contents over the past year, and finally decided that we needed to try them out.
Evie goes to school one day a week right now, so I used the free time to run to a few stores and get my boxes together. I grabbed this set of 5 bins with grey lids for under $6. They're the perfect size (about the size of a shoe box) and coordinate so well with my neutral space.
Then I went a *bit* crazy in the crafts sections of several favorite stores, picking up some basics (construction paper, glitter letter stickers, wooden dowels, safety scissors, popsicle sticks, pom-poms, pipe cleaners, and an assortment of strings and ribbons) and some fun seasonal bits (plastic spiders, spider webs, and tiny pumpkins!). Then I assembled our boxes. I had so much fun, and I had way more ideas than five bins could contain!
I went with labeling our bins 1 - 5, since we're not consistently home the same days each week. For our first set, I've got everything ready to go for:
1) Pom-Pom Spiders
2) Halloween Cookies (I even pre-measured the ingredients and stuck them in baggies!)
3) Spider Web Escape (A box full of spider webs and plastic spiders stuck in them for her to untangle)
4) Mini-Pumpkin Sensory Bin
5) Halloween Banner
I tried to assemble a mix of things that included both different types of activities and different levels of involvement/supervision. This is our first week, so we'll see how it goes! But I'm hopeful that she'll love it, and having these five bins ready to go will alleviate some stress and give us back some more of that sweet play time together.
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