We tend to do crafting activities fairly regularly at my house once the cold weather hits. The kids love the hands-on activities and I’m glad for activities that ground and focus and quiet them, especially when the baby’s napping. That being said, I’ve definitely bit off more than I can chew with certain complex craft activities over the years, running around like a chicken with my head cut off, in full damage control mode (leaving my dining room looking like a warzone after). That’s why, when I find a low-key craft or hands-on activity, I tend to milk it for all its worth.
Three years ago, when my now-kindergartener was a busy two year old and big sister to a brand new newborn brother, I made a set of homemade magnetic pompoms one evening to help keep her busy while my hands were tied up. This cheap craft cost me only $2 to make; I paid one dollar for a pack of dollar store pompoms and a second dollar for a roll of magnetic stripping. The magnet strip is set up like tape (you peel the paper backing off and can mount it to a variety of things)–however, for my purposes I had to add a tiny bit of hot glue. And so, one quiet evening, I spent the 10 minutes or so cutting off little chunks of magnets and hot gluing them to the backs of the multi-coloured, multi-sized pompoms.
The result was a set of inexpensive magnetic pompoms that I could store away literally for years. Every so often, I’ll pull out the old tin I keep them in, give the kids a cookie sheet, and let them go crazy. They’ve played pattern games with them (big, small, big; or red yellow yellow red); they’ve made snakes and worms and caterpillars and “traffic jams”; I’ve drawn a bunch of lonely hanging strings on a piece of paper and they’ve added pompoms to create a balloon bouquet scene; I’ve drawn circles on hand drawn Easter egg pictures and let them “decorate” the egg with pompoms–either randomly or using a pattern. A magnet board or the side of the fridge would also work just as well as a cookie sheet, but I like the cookie sheet because it is (1) free and (2) lap-sized (I have a mini cookie sheet that’s a particular fan favourite).
At Christmas time (for two years running now), I like to create a Christmas tree silhouette out of construction paper, tape it to the cookie sheet and simply leave the whole setup nonchalantly sitting out within reach (this is an activity technique called “strewing”, where you stategically strew some interesting materials about but don’t hover over to ensure they are used “properly”). In the spirit of discovery and curiosity, the kids never waste any time figuring out that they would like to decorate the tree with their magnetic pompoms! It’s fun to watch how they load it up–sometimes they decorate only the tips of the tree and other times they ma
x the whole thing out like a full Bingo card. If the kids tire of a Christmas tree, I’ve also done a snowman shape, letting them add eyes, buttons, etc. Or, draw the roofline of a house, adding circles for a strand of Christmas lights, and let them go to town making patterned pompom “lights”. Of course, there are plenty of non-seasonal ideas as well–bodies for an army of little ants or spiders, gumballs in a machine, or play an actual game of BINGO, letting them use pompoms as Bingo “chips”.
Overall, for the two dollars and ten minutes you’ll put into this activity up front, this is a great winter day kids’ activity that gives you a ton of “bang for your buck” in terms of play opportunities. And hey, there’s no parental hovering or damage control needed–you might even be able to sneak away to wash that load of dishes/read the rest of that article/sneak some cookies in the pantry while your little ones sit in that scary kind of silence. Relish it!
Snippets & Seeds 