Hello folks.  Long time no blog, I know.  With work, family, travel, and other things that I’ve been involved in lately, I haven’t been able to blog regularly.  My apologies.

Now onto our post…those of you on the East Coast are likely battening down the hatches for Frankenstorm.  I’m praying that we all stay safe from the bad weather.  Physical safety aside, parents of young kids will have the extra challenge of keeping the kids entertained while we wait out the storm.

Here are a couple of activities you can do with stuff you have right in your home.

Sensory Box 

You’ll need:

• a small shoebox
• uncooked rice
• dry beans
• small toys or objects (but no choking hazards!)

This is an easy peasy way to pass the time.

 Dump beans and rice into a small shoebox.

Hide some small toys under the beans and rice.  Little ones have a great time digging through the beans and rice.  And flinging it on the carpet.

Indian American Toddler liked this for a few minutes.  But mostly he liked flinging the beans and rice onto the carpet.  Still, it kept him busy.

This next one needs a bit of prep, so you may want to prepare the clay while you still have power.

Homemade Clay from Kitchen Ingredients

You’ll need:

• 1 cup baking soda
• 1/2 cup cornstarch
• 3/4 cup water
• Food coloring (optional)

That’s it!  I’ll bet most of you have these ingredients on your shelves already.  I found the recipe here.  (FYI, I only made a 1/2 portion of this recipe, because I didn’t want to get stuck with a ton of product like I did here.)

Put all of your ingredients into a pot, stir well, and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly.  When the mixture thickens, take it off the heat immediately.  If you keep it on too long, the mixture gets crumbly.

The clay should look like this.  Let it cool on a dish.

Once it is cool enough to handle, knead the clay a bit until it reaches a pliable consistency.

Now you can color the clay using food coloring.  Use a few drops of red and knead to get pink, then add a few drops of blue to make purple.  You can also divide the clay into several heaps and make each a different color, then mix together pieces of each color to get a third color.

Of course, we didn’t do that because Indian American Toddler wasn’t really interested in the clay.  Maybe we’ll have to wait until he’s older.

The clay dries out overnight, but you could try putting it in an airtight container to make it last longer.

What are your favorite indoor activities for kids?  I’d love to get some more ideas to weather the storm and winter weather.