Independent Play with Purpose

For some reason I thought that my days would be a bit easier with Ava in full day kindergarten and Sidney in preschool 3 mornings a week.  I'm down to one or two kids at home most days so that should be easier, right?  Somehow it feels much harder. Sidney is having a tough time adjusting to Ava being gone all day.  She misses her playmate. I've become her new playmate which means I'm not getting a whole lot done.

I've been trying to find some good educational activities for Sidney that she can do independently AND that don't require a ton of preparation or clean up.  Here are some ideas that I found through Pinterest:

Sensory Bag (Kids Activities Blog)

Dry Erase I Spy (All Our Days)

Matching Blocks (All Our Days)

Muffin Tin Sorting (All Our Days)

Pom Pom Stuff (All Our Days)

Scissor Exercises (Happy Hooligans)

Some other activities that always seem to keep my kids busy:
- Puzzles
- Making cards for family members (The only thing my kids love more than mailing cards is getting cards in the mail!)
- Stringing beads
- Cutting up pieces of paper and decorating a picture from a coloring book by gluing the paper scraps to the picture
- Gooey Gunk - A fun alternative to Playdough without the messy clean up!

If you are looking for some fun toys that are also educational, these are a few of our family favorites:
- Imaginets

- LeapFrog LeapReader

- High Five Magazines

- Symphony in B

Feel free to share your ideas too!