Ziploc Organizer

What do you do in a little tiny house with three kids and a million toys? Find different ways to store them, or else they take over. We have a small closet in our living room, so I took apart all the puzzle boxes, saved the front and put them in gallon Ziploc bags. I hung them on hangers originally intended for pants/skirts. I also organized all their "little" toys, action figures, animals, etc. so they could easily get to them.

Book Nook

Hidden here, under our stairs is a special place. Our book nook. It's put there for storage, but it's just the right size for my kids. I put in pillows, hung old t-shirts on the wall for softness and color and light it with Christmas lights. They love curling up with a good book in here! Cool in the summer and warm in the winter. It's a space to be alone, and in a house with three kids, sometimes we just need that!

Cornstarch Paint

I saved those great squeezer bottles that I got in a Tie-Dye kit and use them for so many things. This day, I mixed cornstarch with water and some coloring. (for coloring I almost always use liquid watercolor from Discount School Supply.) The kids painted, made roads by spraying the bottle while they were riding their bikes, made pictures. It's super easy to clean up and bio-degradable.

PVC Sprinklers

We had some of the most fun this summer with PVC sprinklers. I bought a bunch of 1/2" pvc pipe at the hardware store, we cut it into different lengths and drilled holes. The kids would then create a sprinkler and see how it worked. The would change where the holes were, make them tall, try to shoot them at each other.  It was an amazing building project and very engaging.

Mason Jar Craft Containers

I hate to throw things away. Every time I used a jar of spaghetti sauce, salsa, artichoke hearts (etc) my insides would cringe when I went to recycle the container. Such a nice jar free with every sauce I buy! So I started saving them. I'd throw them in the dishwasher and put them in a cabinet to stock pile them. What would I do with them, I didn't know. Finally I had a whole cache of jars piled up, so I decided I'd soak them to get all their labels off and clean them up so they looked nice. I then spray painted all the lids with chalkboard paint. I use them to store craft supplies in that we regularly use to make hot glue sculptures etc. They turned out so nice.

Rainbow beading

My daughter loves to bead, so today we decided to organize some of her beads into rainbow colors. She sat forever working on this, then making bracelets for friends.

Playdough Color mixing

We had so much fun creating rainbow activities today. The kids have "colors days" at school this next week, and we were asked to discuss colors at home. Well, it just happens to be one of my favorite things, so we got right on our assignment.

I made three balls of playdough: yellow, red, and blue. Then I gave the kids many small portions of the primary colors. They knead the colors together to make new colors. It can be hard work and take some time. I also give them a color addition chart, which they fill in as they go.

After I help them mix orange, green and purple, I let them explore mixing colors on their own and give them plenty of time to play!