Homespun Fun

This Monday's activity was brought to us by our friend, Mrs. Ford (also known as Gracie's mom, or sometimes just Jenny). Gracie is a poodle, by the way. Mrs. Ford doesn't have any human children, yet, but that doesn't stop her from having a truly awesome understanding of small children.

So when Mrs. Ford got a new dishwasher, of course she saved the box and gave it to Sydney!

Plain cardboard box + color mixing lesson with paints =


A fairly big mess, really. But it was also a lot of fun. Sydney and I used primary colors to mix together to make all of the secondary colors. I don't think she really learned the concept, but it was a nice exposure sort of thing.


Sometimes I think it's nice to sit back and let kids create, but in this case, Sydney was more into the painting when I was doing it with her, so we painted together. I made flowers and a rainbow (on the other side) and Sydney made letters (or at least she did a lot of alphabet song singing while she painted).

Sydney was really excited about her house. I had picked up a kid's chair from Dollar General for the express purpose of "furnishing" Sydney's cardboard house and she immediately put the two together and sat inside her house. Oh, and since we had already crossed a certain threshold of messiness, we also got out the sidewalk chalk and popsicles.

I thought this activity was a nice "at home" choice, and it had me thinking about the homespun activities verses the trips to the museum, or the times that we pay for crafts (like the Kidtivity at Kaleidoscope Kids). On the one hand, this seems like a really simple, back to the basics activity. It also seems like it would be pretty much free. The box was free, and it was by far the largest component. Yet, the week before, in preparation for today, I went out and bought $7.50 worth of poster paint. Yes, we had some paint, but you need a lot of paint to paint a box and if we had used what we already had, I was afraid we would be left with no paint for the next project. I also paid $2 for the paint trays and $5 for the chair (although the chair was probably unnecessary). The brushes we already had, but I think they were something like $2, the chalk $1, and the popsicles that were already in the freezer were $1. Obviously some of the things (like the paint trays) we'll have for other projects, and other things (like the popsicles and the paint) weren't all consumed with this one day. My point, though, is that without having anything already at the house, we would have spent $18.50 on this activity.

So much for homespun and free, right?

I really admire the moms I see on the 'net who are always doing these really crafty things with their kids and doing the "trash to treasure" bit and acting like every day at home should have a lesson plan like it's school and giving the impression that by staying home they are saving so much money and giving their kids this idea of a simpler life. Then I think about all the consumerist things I do with Sydney (Little People Day, anyone) and wonder if I'm spending too much money when she might be happier with a box.

The moral, I think, is that she might actually be happier with a box. But I won't be spending any less money helping her to play with it.

Even Dollar Store items cost money.