Crafts for a rainy day

This post is inspired by my sister in law Kathy, who mentioned that she was looking for activities to keep her toddler busy on rainy days. This weekend I had one of those rainy days, and I decided to try a few ideas I had bookmarked from various websites I had discovered on Pinterest. One site listed 120 activities for 1-4 year olds. I scanned through the list looking for things that were age appropriate for 2 year olds, and that used supplies I already had at home. Here are the two of the crafts we tried:

1. Mr. Squishy.

I used some old homemade playdough (that I made months ago and was still nice and soft from this recipe) and stuffed it into some balloons. Results - a homemade stress ball! Caleb has been happily playing with Mr. Squishy for the past two days. Poking his finger in it, throwing it, squeezing it. A super easy and fun craft. We'll definitely be making more of these in the future. You can find more detailed directions here.

Playdough filled balloon

Add a face with a sharpee and - presto, Mr. Squishy is born!

2. Baked cotton balls (or Squirrel Nuts, as Cale was calling them)

This one I was less sure about, but since it called for only flour, water and cotton balls, I decided to go for it. I've had a giant bag of cotton balls for at least the past 15 years, so I figured this would be a great way to finally use some of them up! You  take equal parts flour and water, add food coloring, dip in cotton balls and bake them at 300 for 45 minutes. The result is a hardened shell that kids can find different ways to break into. Smashing with a fork and giant spoon and stomping with his feet were big hits with Caleb. A little hammer would have been perfect. I think it would have worked better if my cotton balls weren't so squished from the many years of storage, but it was still a pretty good way to keep little hands busy for awhile.  Full directions here (for fluffier, more professional looking baked cotton balls)!

We had lots of fun making the ingredients together. 

Before going in the oven  

After being baked

Final result - cracked squirrel nuts