Busy Baskets

Today I am going to share with you an idea that might just make your days easier and more productive.  Homeschool parents know that it is impossible to devote 100% attention to your child (whether you have just one, three, or twelve!) 100% of the time.  Why?  Well, for starters, we are human beings who require the basics: food, water, rest….. potty breaks.  And, even when our top priority each school day is to actually educate our offspring in some way, we often have other responsibilities that require our attention, such as laundry, meal preparations, Facebook, Twitter, and other necessary tasks.

When such needs arise during our day, we are often presented with the challenge of giving the children something to do to keep them occupied.  Of course, the easiest thing to do would be to plop them down in front of the TV for an “educational program”, right?  (Not pointing fingers here, for I, too, am “guilty” of this crime.)  However, with just a little bit of planning, you can employ this fun and simple strategy to keep little hands busy and, more importantly, out of mischief. This is what I call my “Busy Basket”.  In it, I keep all kinds of goodies, such as:

• Dominoes
• Pattern Blocks
• Poker Chips
• Math Games
• Brain Quest Cards
• Word Puzzle Cards
• Barrel of Monkeys
• Magnetic Numbers/Letters
• Dry Erase Board w/Markers
• Coloring Books w/Crayons, Markers, Colored Pencils

The idea is, when Mom needs a minute or two (or twenty) to make lunch, shower, help big brother with math – whatever the need may be, all she has to do is announce that it’s “basket time” for the unoccupied children.  For my 7 year old son, basket time is a treat!  And even though it is educational, he enjoys picking various things out of the basket and doing whatever he wants with them for a little while.

Dominoes are great because, not only can they be used for a fun game of actual dominoes, but they make great blocks for building with.  Plus, any child can make a game out of lining dominoes up and then setting off a chain reaction to knock them all down!

A bucket of pattern blocks is another wonderful item to keep on hand because they are so versatile.  My son loves creating intricate patterns with these soft foam blocks, and I am often amazed at his masterpieces.  They can also be stacked, counted, and sorted by shape, color, size, etc.

Have you ever thought of poker chips as an educational toy?  If not – you should try some!  They come in a variety of colors and are relatively inexpensive.  We keep ours in a metal tin (that was once used to store Christmas cookies, as a matter of fact) and my son enjoys using them for counting, sorting, stacking, and knocking them down.  We also use them for a fun math game by using one chip to push down on the edge of another chip and fling it through the air into the cookie tin!  It’s a lot of fun! (If you would like to see a video demonstration of this – click HERE.)

As you can see in the picture, I have a couple of the old “Magic Math” boards from when I was a kid.  You can find them on eBay, if you’re interested.

The Brain Quest cards are a lot of fun, and work best with kids who are old enough to read for themselves.  It especially works out nicely when two children work together, one reading the questions and the other trying to answer them.  They have a huge variety of cards to choose from.

We also love the puzzle cards, like these.

A Barrel of Monkeys game can also be used for counting and math games…. or just for stringing up chains of monkeys, which is also fun!

Magnetic numbers and letters, well – that’s pretty self-explanatory, isn’t it?  I keep these in the metal tin with the poker chips, so when the chips are dumped out, the metal tin is the perfect surface for working with magnets.  Pretty clever, eh?

A small dry erase board and a dry erase marker (appropriate for kids old enough to not decorate the sofa with them, of course) can provide a great deal of entertainment for kids.  I often find my kiddos using these to homeschool each other or their toys.

And, of course, coloring books and all the fun utensils to color with are a wonderful fall-back anytime.

These are just a handful of ideas out of the thousands of possibilities.  Do you have a busy basket?  What kinds of things do you keep in yours?  And if you don’t have one yet, but would like to create a busy basket, what new ideas do you have for possible contents?  Maybe you will think of something that I haven’t thought of yet – so please share!

Until next time,