For our recent activity day, my co-leader and I made a Busy Box filled with some fun HOMEMADE winter games for a family in our ward with small children. Our activity girls helped us cut things out and decorated the box. The busy box included the following instructions and supplies:
Snow Balls - We gave them two stacks of random magazines. Allow the kids to have a fun time ripping out all the pages in the magazines and wadding them up into balls. Collect all the "snow balls" into a pile ontop of a large blanket. They can then take turns running and leaping into the pile of snow or they can each hold one corner of the blanket and shake making a snow storm.
Snow Painting - Give each kid a spray bottle with paint and let them outside to paint pictures on the snow. We filled the spray bottles with acrylic paint and alcohol.
Moon Mud - We gave them a large box of corn starch. Mix one box of cornstarch with just barely enough water to make a viscous goo. Mix well and drop into a large cookie or baking dish. Moon mud should be runny when not manipulated, but turn solid when handled. Let the kids experiment with making balls out of it or trying to draw shapes in it (they won't form for more than a second). Then they can grab toys, trucks, and cars and have a great time rolling them ontop of or digging up the moon mud.
Coin Toss - Place tupperware bowl in a large pan or baking dish half filled with water (the pan not the tupperware). Have the kids take turns tossing their coins into the bowl. There are five pennies, dimes and nickels so there's no confusion as to who's coin made it in the bowl.
Tube Roll - We got four different sizes of wrapping paper tubes. Use the tape to combine the four pieces of cardboard tube. Place the box or bowl at the bottom of a set of stairs. Have kids take turns rolling things like balls or cars down the tube, trying to aim for the box at the bottom of the stairs.
Flying Fish - We cut out 1 1/2 inch by 12 strips of colorful paper. The kids will take one strip of paper and connect the fish tail together using the pre-cut slits. These fishies, if throw high enough by their tails, with twirl and spin in the air. They're especially fun to throw over a banister or off of a deck. They can take turns being throwers and catchers.
I Spy In a plastic bottle, it was filled with rice, wheat, lentils, etc. Hidden in the stuff are objects such as a nickel, penny, star, bell, crayon, eye, flower, letter, fastener, sport's ball, triangle, heart, gold bead, blue bead, shell, rubber band, feather, paper clip, and yellow pompom. Have the kids take turns playing I spy.
Glow in the Dark Food We included a box of blue berry Jello. "The secret to glowing food is tonic water (diet tonic water works too). It contains quinine, and guess what happens when you expose quinine to black light?fun, right?? So if you mix up a drink (like crystal light lemonade and add a little tonic water)you make magical glowing beverages! Pretty much anything you can make that includes water can glow with tonic water like Jello. Now tonic water does have a bitter taste to it. Adding a bit of juice or punch isn't very noticeable. And if you do jello, you can use part regular water (half and half, or even less tonic) to minimize the bitter taste." I got this idea from Our Best Bites.
Cotton Ball Game- We gave them some cotton balls and green string. "Give each child a cotton ball. Use a piece of yarn as the finish line. Have the children get behind the line on their hands and knees and blow their cotton balls across the line. Whose ever crosses the finish line first wins!" This idea is from the baby sitter kit @ Wendy's Activities Blog
We also included a couple recipes for play-dough, finger paint, and giant bubbles. It was very easy to put together because most of the stuff is recycled (wrapping paper tubes, water bottle, and cool whip containers) as well as household things we have lying around the house. The box is wrapped, decorated, and ready to delivered to the family!
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