It makes me laugh to think that in a house full of fancy toys & play sets, it is always the simplest things that hold on to our children’s attention the most.
Our daughter loves to paint & draw, so we got her an easel. She prefers to draw at the kitchen counter. She loves building and stacking, so we got her building blocks & Legos. She still is piling up Play-Doh containers & paint bottles.
She loves to cook, so when her cousin gave her a beautiful play kitchen filled with fake food and pots & pans, we thought she would be ecstatic. Instead of cooking up plastic chicken drumsticks & Velcro vegetables, Mai was more interested in mixing up a pot of alphabet magnets.
Here she is cooking up something delicious in our rice cooker.
After dinner last night, Mai was a little bit antsy & mommy was tired. I needed something to keep her occupied for a little while. I asked her if she wanted to play with some water. I already knew what the answer would be, because she loves water play. I filled up our ice bucket with some water & went to get her some measuring spoons and scoops to use with the water. When I came back she had poured all of her ABC magnets in the bucket & was whirling them around with her hand. We traded in our measuring spoon for a ladle & a handled sieve instead. Mai would use the ladle or sieve to fish out the letters. “I making soup.” Yes you are. It looks delicious.
We made a little game out of it.
“Mai, can you find me the “P””?
“Right there!”
“P is for penguin.”
“Yes it is. Great job.”
Like I said, it really is the simple things. She played happily up until bath time, while I got a chance to sit down for a bit & just enjoy watching our happy little girl.
4 comments
I love it and definitely so simple, but totally see it working like a charm to reinforce the alphabet and sounds, too!! 🙂
Kept her content til bed. Ahhhhh. That is nice. Enjoy your weekend Janine.
If our second son had come first, we wouldn’t have any toys. He’d be happy playing with anything that was laying around. He has very little interest in toys, and even less so in age appropriate toys. Since he was born I only bought him one, and I think you’ve got that one by the looks of those white alphabet pieces 🙂 “A says “ah”, A says “ah”. Every letter makes a sound. A says “ah”!” (Am I right or did I just make a complete fool of myself?)
Mine is the same way. She would be perfectly content with a bowl of water and measuring cups. We do the A is ah too. Lol! So don’t worry.