Busy Boxes: August

I have an entire Pinterest board dedicated to "keep Ruby busy" ideas.

I got a few ready in time for our first full week of school.

The first is a modified "paint swatch match" game.

I thought that matching shades of the same color would be just entirely too difficult and frustrating for a toddler, so I had the idea to make the matching part of decorating a butterfly.

I cut the butterfly shape from cardboard, then cut various shapes from the paint swatches and matching pieces on the clothespins.

It didn't turn out to be quite as pretty as I wanted, ha ha.

And, the shapes are pretty fragile, especially one I did in the shape of a moon.  I've already had to repair three clothespins. But it's an okay game.

I also did one on a circle.  

I would have liked to cover the entire circle, but it turned out to be more complicated than I was willing to work with on a lazy Sunday afternoon.  So, it turned in to a kind of smiley sunshine looking thing.

She likes it!

Here are all three color matching activities, and a smile photobombing me.

I do have to keep the clothespins separated into baggies because if they are all dumped out it's way hard for her to match them up.

This one is more like the original idea, but again, 5 shades of pink or green is just too hard, 

so I modified it by cutting and pasting different colors on a small strip of cardboard.

I really think the color matching game is so cute, but she played with it for a while and hasn't asked to get it out again. :(

This is what she REALLY loves.....

GLUING!

The most simply put together activity.  Magazines, safety scissors, and glue.

It only took about 3 minutes for me to realize that a two year old can't cut pictures out of magazines, ha ha.

So, I started cutting them out for her, and Katie and Noah helped as well.

We cut out pictures of kids from old sewing magazines, and then a bunch of food and household items from sales ads.  So now she can "cut" them a little more if she likes, then she glues them on pieces of cardstock.

I cannot stress enough how much she loves this and will ask to do it over and over while I get things done with Katie and Noah!

And the number 2 favorite busy box:

OF COURSE! Can't go wrong with play-doh!

She has played with some of the tiny party favor ones during her potty training experiment, but I'd picked up this play set for half price at Target which had the play-doh scissors, cutters, and stamps along with it.

It was the first box she wanted down on Monday and she alternates between this and the glue box constantly.

Here's a shot of one of her photo collages.

And, I have been guilty of not getting together many of the other ideas (other than the apple theme box that was pictured on our first day of school post), so I haphazardly threw this stuff in a box for her.  An ice tray, plastic tongs, and various tiny *things* for her to play around with.

I got it out once and she didn't even try it, ha ha. I guess the play doh and glue is just TOO fun!

My plan is to rotate out some different activities. I think the glue collage will stick around for a while as well as the play doh, but I guess this last one needs replacing pretty soon, ha ha.