Pinterest Inspired Play

Just like everyone else I find myself getting overwhelmed by all the decorating, food, house and style inspiration pictures on Pinterest. I sort of have to force myself to lie low every once in a while because I feel like I will never have the "perfect Pinterest life" with the amazing house, designer clothes, perfect Paleo meals on the table every night, and so on. BUT, I have really been inspired by some of the homeschooling and toddler play ideas there lately!!

My favorite pins almost always come from Playful Learning. I think they post a great variety of activities and a lot of them are sensory things that I am very into with Landon right now.

I saw this pin where you make your own indoor ball pit with a cheap inflatable pool and plastic slide and thought that would be right up our alley. We already had a slide we keep in the Living Room (I know..) so I ordered a pool for $8 from Amazon. Plastic balls are expensive so I waited and kept an eye on Amazon to see if I could find a price drop.

Then one day I was in Goodwill looking for a piece of furniture for a project and found a set of 150 balls almost new in the bag! For $4! So we now have a ball pit in our Living Room we are loving for getting our energy out. Other balls and balloons have been added - it has been a big hit!!

Recently I also saw a pin on mirror play on one of the homeschool boards I follow. I loved the idea of using a simple mirror (who doesn't have one at home) to create a new experience with blocks or toys. Kids can learn a sense of symmetry by organizing materials onto a mirror. What a cool concept! We already had a set of plastic shapes I had gotten last year at a garage sale (tip: look for garage sale ads that say "homeschool" or "teacher" for awesome learning supplies!!), similar here. I was amazed how long Landon played at the mirror! He even got different vehicles out and built a tunnel for them with the pieces entirely on his own. :)

One of my "go to" activities when we are bored at home is to do some kind of sensory play with sand outside. I buy sea shells from the Dollar Tree and bury them, or I hide coins for Landon to dig up and then put in his piggy bank. He also likes to just pour sand from one container to another. I saw on Pinterest several ideas using rice, noodles and corn instead of sand -- which is more "inside friendly" because it they can be vacuumed up! I made a rice tub for Landon's diggers and it has been a huge hit! I think this might be a good thing I can pull out when I'm nursing the new baby to buy some time??

Thank goodness for Pinterst! If you want to see all of my Pinterest boards, click here:)