Travel & Leisure: Keeping Them Busy, Part II

More cheap ways to keep the little kids in your life busy so they hopefully won't drive you nuts.
(Also see Part I.)

Buried treasure
Dig around in your junk drawers for small objects like rhinestones, countertop samples, sequins, empty thread spools, plastic grapes and beads. (Be sure that the objects you choose are appropriate for your child's age and maturity level, and won't be potential choking hazards.) Mix the stuff in with the sand in your kid's sand box, then tell him that boy, isn't he lucky - he gets to hunt for buried treasure!

If you're lucky, you'll have the type of kid who will relinquish the treasure after digging it up and demand that you bury it again and again, thus reusing it. If you're not so lucky, you'll have a kid who doesn't think plastic grapes are cool, or one who demands that you put a new, fresh batch of treasure in each time. Either way, if you mix the sequins in really well and don't give your kid a sieve, this should be good for at least five or ten minutes of peace.

This also makes a great game for kids' parties, although it isn't a good way to distribute party favors. (Some kids will always find more junk than others, leading to broken hearts.) However, if you're feeling really "gilded age", you could do this at an adult party and throw in real diamonds and pearls!

Streamer painting
Every birthday, parents hang crepe paper streamers so that they can be admired for approximately fifteen minutes, then torn down and thrown in the trash. No more!

You paid good money for those streamers, and you deserve to get your money's worth! If you aren't going to coil them up and save them for next year, get your kids to pull them down and tear them into fairly short pieces. (1 - 4" is good.) Issue each kid a piece of white paper, a small bowl of water and a paint brush. Brush some water over a section of paper, then press on a section of streamer. Continue until the paper is covered with bits of streamer.

At this point, you can either peel off the sections of streamer or let them dry until they come off on their own. The color from the streamers should be transferred to the paper. In general, the longer the streamers stay on the paper, the brighter the colors will be.

Alternatively, if you have the kind of streamers that don't bleed, you can just let the kids glue them to paper. That looks pretty good too.

By the way - this one can get kind of messy, and the dye can come off on kids' hands. Did we mention that we have no idea whether the dye in streamers is toxic, so you do this at your own risk? On the other hand, if the dye is toxic, why are the streamers allowed around children? (Evidently some people even use the streamers to dye Easter eggs!)

Hose walk
Uncoil your garden hose, then lay it across your yard in wild loops and patterns. Have your kid walk on it, following the loops. Rearrange and repeat as needed.

Sink & float
Some kids are mesmerized by this activity and others could care less. Maybe you'll luck out and have one who's wild about it.

Send your kid around the house to collect junk for his "experiment". Choose harmless things that you don't care about much, like old thread spools, a spoon, a plastic bottle, a potato or an orange. Next, give him a wash basin of water or throw him in the bathtub. Give him each object to put in the water, but first have him predict whether it will sink or float.