Recently my three-year-old son, Camden, and I did a fun little project that you might enjoy doing with your young son or daughter. Not only did he love creating his I Spy Bottle, but it now sits on our kitchen table and we play with it after lunch and dinner. Playing I Spy helps with toddler attention span and sight skills. Using the funnel, measuring cup and rice helps with pouring, hand/eye coordination and patience.
Since Easter is coming up, I thought this would be a heartfelt, educational addition to your child’s Easter basket (do we really need more sugar bomb candy?). Personalize with trinkets your child loves (for Cam it’s all about the cars and trucks) along with things like numbers, letters, and sight words. And if you are making it by yourself (to add to your child’s Easter basket) it will only take you five minutes.
You Will Need:
- Wide clear plastic container or bottle with lid
- 1-2 cups white rice
- Liquid measuring cup
- Small funnel
- Mini erasers (try The Dollar Store), colored beads, letter and number beads (try Michael’s and JoAnne’s Fabrics)
- Small hot glue gun (I got mine at Michael’s)
Directions:
Add 1/4 cup of rice into the liquid measure. While you hold the funnel, get your toddler to pour the rice from the liquid measure into the the funnel and watch it pour into the container. Yes you could just dump all of the rice in at once but this way it teaches patience and also prevents a wicked spill (we had an outtake). Repeat 4 times.
Next let your child add some of the larger trinkets, like the erasers.
Once the larger items are added, mom can dump the smaller things, like beads, into the jar.
Then take your glue gun and run a small amount of glue around the underside of the lid. Tighten lid and let sit for 5 minutes.
That’s it. You’re done and ready to play I Spy With My Little Eye…
Leave a Reply