Buttons!

My kiddos are at the age where they love doing anything with their hands:  sorting, organizing, coloring, drawing, water play, beading, magnets, etc, etc, etc!  The list goes on an on!!  Ava, especially, is our "sensory" gal and could work on these types of hands-on projects for days.  She even asks if she can "ordonize" the pantry for me.  She takes out all the canned food, lines them up on the floor and puts them back in again.  She loves it!! (Hey, that's another frugal activity right there!!!)

So, here's a great,  super frugal, creative and fun activity for your kids, and all you need is this:

• A Plastic Fruit Holder.  We are using a clear, plastic apple holder (from Costco, I think?).  Which, is another frugal tip:  save all your fruit trays, egg crates, berry bins, cereal boxes, etc.  You can ALWAYS find something to do with them!


• Buttons.  If you don't have buttons, you can use any sort of small sorting object.  I just love using buttons for the different shapes, colors, sizes and textures.

And that's it folks.....that's all you need!  Spread it all out on a table and have at 'em!  My sister bought the buttons we're using here, but, to be super frugal, seek them out wherever you go!   Garage sales, thrift stores, etc---you can get all sorts of different kinds of buttons on the cheap, and, sometimes, even free!!



Having the kids use their imaginations and play with them as the wish is always great, but, you can also have your kiddos sort them.  They can learn to sort them by size, shape, color or texture.  Here, Ava's working on sorting hers by color:



She could probably sit here for hours and do this.  She is just fascinated by it!!

You can also make shapes and letters out of them.  Lately, Lukie's imagination has been running wild, and he sees shapes and letters in everything---food, clouds, nature, toys, etc!  So, I sat down with him, and I started making letters to see if he could mimic the letter I formed.

Here's my "B":

Here's Lukie working on his "B":

And, here it is:

Not too shabby for a 2 year old!!!

Working with buttons is fostering great learning and creative skills for my little ones, and, they really enjoy it!