Yours to Discover

One of the many hats you wear as a mom is 'entertainer'. This really has become a full time job for me lately! Long gone are the days of the sleepy infant content to sit in a bouncy seat or swing; I have a wrecking crew roaming around my house on all fours right now! I'm always trying to come up with ideas to keep my little guy occupied. One of my favourites (and his!) are "Discovery Baskets". This started with me struggling to get dinner ready and having to stop every 30 seconds to pull Wesley out of a cupboard, grab a knife out of his hand (kidding!) etc... so I grabbed a basket and put some unbreakable kitchen items in it that he could play with. I stashed this in a low cupboard so he could open it himself and take the basket out whenever he wanted. It was HUGE hit and I was finally able to get something done. Every week or so I would rotate out the items with some new things in to keep him interested. Today I filled some plastic bottles with water and added a little food colouring and he loves this! Also, macaroni and rice "shakers" (in tupperware) have been big hits.

 

Kitchen Discovery Basket

I've seen this idea lots of places since then - great moms think alike - and it really does make for hours of entertainment! It's so fun to watch him discover the different items inside and see what he does (or tries to do!) with them. Why do kids love the things that aren't actually toys more than all the flashy, expensive stuff we buy them??

I read some great articles here and here and now our kitchen discovery basket has evolved into a few different baskets around the house. We now have a "nature" basket filled with pinecones, some gourds, fake leaves, rocks...

Nature

... and then sort of a "hodge-podge" basket with random items from around the house. I picked up a little set of jingle bells and a hacky sack for this today.



Hodge-podge

I've placed the baskets in accessible spots to him around the house and plan to move them around every few days so it will be a surprise when he crawls upon one! Having a bunch of different baskets that you can rotate out would also keep it fresh. One of the articles mentions a food basket and a noise basket; fun and fun!

Happy discovering!