A Little Known Fact

.... that is, I think it's a little known fact ... I guess we'll have to see.

One of the perks of buying Grandma and Grandpa's house is having access to the shed. The shed houses all of Bob's wood working equipment. Bob couldn't take them with him, so we're looking after them, providing them a good home, and when he needs something, he shows up and uses or takes what ever he needs for the project of the day.

Like most guys who went to a small high school, GR took shop. He really enjoyed it and had a shop teacher that would let the kids make whatever they wanted. So after the first standard project, he started making other things; a set of nesting elephants for his mother, a rocking horse, a bench with storage under the seat. Since high school, he's done small projects here and there for church or scouts or the fireworks or to help Bob with a home improvement project, but hasn't really been able to do hard core projects because he hasn't had easy access to the tools like he does now. Now that he sleeps 30 feet from them, a whole new world is opening up ... that and the discovery of this blog back in January!

Just before we moved, we cashed in every single credit card point we had a crewed over the last decade or more, for Best Buy gift cards, and finally purchased a big flat TV with every single one of those points. It got delivered the weekend we moved in. After watching a couple of shows, we realized a table or console of some kind under the TV would be smart to help little kids, their hands and their toys at a distance, otherwise, we were going to have a problem. We looked at Target and Walmart, even Craigslist, and found some suitable options, but in almost every case they were expensive for what you were getting. And so we figured we could totally make our own, and settled on these plans.

It took a series of nights over two weeks to complete it ... it was all GR. I did nothing, but make sure sleeping children didn't wake up, admire his handy work, console him when he pointed out mistakes, and of course, click pictures so I could brag on him. I'm not sure exactly how people are able to put this thing together in an evening or two?! But we are both so pleased with how it turned out and are already planning future projects!




So there you have it, a little known fact, my husband can build stuff from scratch!

Indoor Water Fun for Toddlers and Preschoolers

Have you seen the water tables some preschools have? It's basically a table with a deep basin they can fill with water, sand, oatmeal or an assortment of beans to serve as a tactile station. At every station like this, kids typically have to be pried away and told to do something else, or they get squeeze out by other kids who want to play too.

Today was my day to host and teach preschool again. Our topic was rain, snow, wind and water. We didn't have any snow, so we focused on the other three elements. Our free play was my own "mom" version of a water table. Had I had enough sink space, we'd have just all pushed chairs up to the sink and played there (Anna and Alex will never tire of this - thank heavens for double sinks and tile floors!).

I used two under bed storage bins, filled them 1/3 full with warm tap water, had a plastic watering can for each child, plastic cups in different sizes and measuring cups.

Since I wanted the kids to make it home somewhat dry, I used plastic grocery bags to make 'smocks' for each of them. I flattened out the bag and cut out the middle of the bottom 'seam' of the bag. Leave 3 inches of the seam on both ends, these will be the shoulders of the smock. Next cut open both sides of the plastic bag all the way to the bottom seam. Snip the handles apart to create ties. This should resemble something like a scrimmage jersey.

Slip their head through the opening in the bottom of the bag, and tie the handles securely at their hips.

If the child is wearing long sleeves, you'll want to push them up well past their elbows to keep them dry.

Keep a stack of towels on hand, because try as they might, water will get on the floor and you'll want to wipe it up periodically so your feet don't get cold and wet.

These kids played with this set up for a 30-45 minutes, with no sign of getting bored.

Had the weather been better, this would have been perfect to do outside. Prop the storage bins up on buckets or set up two folding chairs facing each other, using the seats to set the water bin on, making it accessible from both sides and would allow up to four kids to participate.