This is a part of Formula Fed and Flexible Parenting. It is an erratically maintained write-up of crafts that I try. I rate each craft based on a complex algorithm that graphs ease of setup and cleanup against its ability to hold the attention of a child. If you like to make your child's Halloween costumes, cakes from scratch, and other elaborate crafts, this blog is probably way too simple for you.
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Name:
Alex Elliot
Home:
MA, US
About Me:
Professional Mom of two cats, a dog, an ant farm, and oh yeah...two boys: a 3.5 year old and a 1 year old.
When all else fails I like to turn to "potching". I do this when my older son (OS) is going crazy and due to a major snowstorm or some other really good reason, we couldn't possible leave our house. I suspect I will be doing this a lot later this month as I (by that I mean my husband) attempts to potty train OS. I also usepotching if I'm babysitting for a friend's child and she is very upset. If your child can pull herself up, she can participate. It has never failed me.
So what is potching? Well, first I would like to give credit to my friend "JB" for the name. It's been in her family for a long time. It's a fancy name for filling your kitchen sink with water and soap and letting the kids splash around in it. I give OS cups, plastic plates and bowls, measuring spoons, a large spoon, eggbeater, plastic figurines (ie Little People) etc. He splashes around and pretends to make soup, coffee, you name it. JB actually has been known to give people "potching" kits that she puts together for gifts. They usually include an apron and the above mentioned items.
A variation on this is to fill a baby bath tub with water and put it on the kitchen floor. I haven't tried it yet, but since my younger son (YS) can just sit up, I sense an experiment with this variation on the horizon.
Sounds like the perfect craft, right? In many ways it is, because it occupies my child for a very long period of time. It's cheap. Everything is clean at the end. Nothing new is being made, so I don't have to try and find a "home" for anything. If I'm feeling really energetic, I'll use the soapy water to mop my floor when OS is done. Here's the down-side: I can pretty much guarantee that it will make a gigantic mess. The good news is that mess is just soapy water and wet utensils so it will eventually dry on it's own. It's not so good if:
You forget that the floor is wet and you dash into the kitchen to grab the phone
You have a child who is just learning to walk and who might wipe out on said wet floor
You have a dog with muddy paws who will walk on the above mentioned floor.
The main reason I don't do it more often is that it has a prerequisite that is rarely found in my house: a clean sink. It's a personal thing, but if OS is going to play in the sink, I want to make sure that not only are there no dirty dishes (or sharp knives for that matter), but also there are also no tiny fragments from that day's breakfast (or heaven forbid the preceding night's dinner). My secondary reason is that I find it annoying to have to dry off and put everything away at the end.
A. Elliot's Ratings: Ease of setup/cleanup (1-10 with 1 being most difficult): 7 Attention Getting (1-10 with 1 generating least interest; this excludes dogs): 10
Yes, I know you're asking yourself, "Is there any craft that A. Elliot thinks is really great?" (Because clearly pondering about my blog is the most important thing you can be doing.) There actually are a few crafts that I would not hestitate to recommend. One of them is coloring salt.
I'll admit when I first heard of this at a meeting I attended, I rolled my eyes and thought "you couldn't pay me to do this craft". It just sounded way too complicated. However, after listening closely I decided that maybe it wasn't so bad after all. In fact after a little tweaking, I liked it so much I decided to have the kids do it at my older son's (OS) 3rd birthday party.
Here's what you need: small containers (baby food jars/containers are ideal), Kosher salt, colored chalk (the thicker the better. Those Crayola Easter Egg chalks work the best), funnel (optional).
Pour a small amount of Kosher salt in the baby food jar. Have your child stir the salt with a piece of chalk. For a toddler you can put the piece of chalk in a jar with a lid and have the child shake it. When the salt becames a shade that your child is happy with, take the funnel and pour the newly colored salt from the jar into a clean one. Repeat above steps with a new color of chalk. When it is time to pour out the new, colored salt, pour it on top of the other colored salt. Continue until the jar is full. For the more advanced salt artists, poke a hole through several layers of the salt with a toothpick to allow the colors to swirl. If your child is under the age of five, it is inevitable that he will shake his finished product turning all of the salt into an odd but uniform gray color.
The reasons I like this craft are that it's easy, it keeps OS entertained, and it is cheap. I have had a couple people inquire about resusing the salt. This goes past what I will do to recycle. However, you could put the salt on a coffee filter and pour cold water over it to "clean" it. I haven't actually done this, but hey, my year of organic chemistry with lab says it should work fine. Honestly, though one box of Kosher salt can be the source of many many colored projects if you choose.
I'm giving "ease of setup/cleanup" a 7 instead of a higher mark simply because you may not have the materials on hand.
A. Elliot's Ratings: Ease of setup/cleanup (1-10 with 1 being most difficult): 7 Attention Getting (1-10 with 1 generating least interest; this excludes dogs): 8
