I happened upon this free craft idea while at a friend’s house. While our children were playing, my friend brought out an arts and crafts box. Inside the box were paints, scissors, paper, old magazines, glue, glitter glue, markers and crayons. Those items right there can keep your toddler busy for quite some time.

When the toddlers said they wanted to paint, we took them over to the tiled area of the house and let them have paper and fingerpaints. Pretty soon, one toddler wanted to paint her legs. That did not bother us, so we let her. Pretty soon, the seocnd toddler wanted to paint her legs and take her clothes off.

Not long after, both children had their clothes off and were happily painting their bellies and giggling. They would paint their belly button, giggle and then shout, “look at me!”

They giggled at the ticklish paint brush and went wild at the attention they got from the other three of us.

At the end, we put both toddlers into the bath and the fun continued as they rubbed slippery soap over the painted parts, splashed in the water and played with toys.

Oh, we got a few paintings out of this, too. One toddler made a ‘belly painting’ by placing her painted belly onto the paper.

* Sheet Fort: When changing bed sheets – why not give the little ones the opportunity to make forts with sheets and the living room couch before throwing the sheets in for a wash? It can keep them occupied while you get other things done, and you don’t have to dirty a clean sheet for the occasion.

*Sheet Sled: Open up a sheet on the floor, plant your little one in the middle and pull them around for a fun ride before washing the sheets. The kids think its a blast and you might as well do it with the sheets you are about to wash anyway!

Loading & unloading

* Washer basketball: Its amazing how happy my son is to load the laundry into the washer or dryer for me. Its easier with the front loaders, but they can also “play basketball” with the top loaders. Make a game and yell “score!” or “2 points” every time they “make a basket.” (I also use this technique to get my son involved in picking up his toys in the playroom and putting them away in their baskets. It works wonders.)

Folding

* Admittedly, this is a tough one. I usually have work to keep my boys from messing up my neatly folded piles of clothes. They way I have dealt with this is to give them the kitchen towels and smaller bath towels to fold. They do their messy folding and I praise them, and they are happy. Then I re-fold them when they are not around. :~)

1. Gardening with Your Toddler: At this age, children love to be a big help. If you have a small watering can, they can water plants. If it’s a big can, they can ‘help’ you hold it while you water. My tot is fond of picking weeds as long as I let her know which are weeds and which are flowers we want to keep!
2. Unloading the Dishwasher: I know this does not seem like the most exciting activity. However, my little one loves  to do this with me. She puts away all of the tupperware and, now that’s she’s a bit older, she puts away the eating utensils, too. Since she can’t reach the drawer, I pull the utensil rack out of the drawer and place it on the kitchen table. She completes this while sitting in a chair.
3. Cooking: One of us has probably said this elsewhere on this site. Cooking holds so many possibilities for a young one. They can measure, pour ingredients from one place to another, stir, and then eat the results! I find that my toddler is a much more adventuresome eater when she’s helped to make the food. =-)

The above are excellent activities to spend time with your toddler when you also need to get some tasks completed around the house.

A cardboard box becomes the frame of your child’s new toy, and creating the house can be filed under “fun toddler activities. =-)

Toddlers become impatient. In your toddler’s point of view, this project will seem to take eons. If you want to do this project with them, I suggest you give them small tasks to complete. They can make wallpaper with white paper and crayons. If they are old enough, they can cut out shapes or help you put glue on the walls so you can paste on the wallpaper and photographs. They may wander off at some point if they have a short attention span. Eventually, they’ll probably come back and help you again.

Required Materials:

• Lots of catalogs with photos of living rooms, bedrooms, furniture, etc.;
• Cardboard box (one that holds a lot of diapers, a shoe box is too small)
• Glue — glue sticks or good old Elmer’s glue
• Stickers (optional)
• Scrapbooking paper (to use as wallpaper)
• Wrapping paper (to use wherever you fancy)
• Scissors
• Construction paper
• Crayons

Instructions

1. How big your dollhouse will be will depend on the size of your box. Using scissors, cut out the largest side of the box. This will become your central wall.

2. Cut out the two smaller sides. These will become the walls between the rooms.

You’re aiming for a long central wall with two smaller walls that bisect it. Imagine a lowercase “t” with two crosses instead of one cross, and that is the shape you want. The house has no walls or roof, which makes it easier for little hands to get into the rooms to play.

3. Now it’s time to decorate! Get your toddler busy with crayons or have them decorate a white sheet of paper that will become wallpaper for a room.

4. While your toddler is busy, you can decide which areas will become the kitchen, bedroom, living room, etc.

5. Then, start gluing the cut-out photos of beds, curtains and bookcases to the walls of the bedroom. If you end up with an ugly spot from catalog copy, you can cover that with a sticker or a bit of scrapbooking paper (or even wrapping paper!).

6. Keeping working on each room until you like how it looks. You can come up with a number of ideas and keep adding to them until you’re pleased with the results.

7. If you knit, you can use scrap yarn to make a little rug. I temporarily used two square coasters to make a floor in one room.

The total cost for my project was $5 for the scrapbooking paper. I had all the other materials on hand.