Entertaining the 4 year old Crowd

We had a rare day today with a completely free calendar. And since I had a few things that I wanted to get done around the house, I decided to try an experiment and figure out which quiet activities can best occupy a couple of 4 1/2 year old boys. I'm still not sure I have the answer, but we sure had fun today. Here are the activities we tried:

Mosaics
We used My First Sticky Mosaics, which are perfect for beginners. I set my stopwatch to 00:00 and we began. 3:35 minutes into the project, Ben had about 10 stickers placed and said he was tired. Ace powered through and at 15:21 had a finished product. He loved it! I managed to drink a cup of coffee and wake up during this time.

Pipe Cleaner Free Play:
Next on our agenda: fun with pipe cleaners! This idea came from a friend. I handed each boy a pile of pipe cleaners and told them to "create something special and surprise me". And then I started my stopwatch, left them to it, and promised not to peek. Here is what went down:

2:50 - Ace said he was done. It was too hard.
3:48 - Ben triumphantly showed me his spider-robot.
4:13 - Ace (who was still trying, despite telling me he was done) said, "I can't make ANYTHING!"
5:22 - Ace (sobbing hysterically now), "It's too hard!!"
6:36 - I finished consoling Ace and gave him another mosaic to work on.
9:24 - Ben finished his "squiggly, wiggly spider!"
10:17 - Ace: "I'm tired."
13:56 - Ben started crying because he wanted to make a flower and was struggling.
16:16 - I made the &*@! flower and we called an end to this activity.
Despite all the interruptions, I managed to unload the dishwasher and load our breakfast dishes. And have another cup of coffee.

Cookies
I needed to bake 5 dozen cookies for an event this weekend. And the best way to occupy pre-schoolers when you need to bake cookies is...let them help! Honestly, I can't remember the last time I made cookies alone. It takes twice as long with little helpers (and I won't even talk about the clean-up) but they have so much fun. They scooped and measured and dumped and we practiced simple math skills. I forgot to set my stopwatch but the time really flew by. Check out the cloud of pudding powder as they dumped and shook.


Puzzle Time (which turned into Spider Man Activity Book Time)
I got to work rolling the dough into balls while the buddies went into our toy closet to choose their puzzles. Ace came back with a large transportation puzzle. Ben returned with a Spider Man activity book.

00:00 - Begin!
4:15 - Ace's puzzle was complete. Then, he took it apart so he could do it again.
8:26 - Ace's puzzle was complete (again). Then, he packed it back in the box, fetched his Spider Man book and sat down with Ben.


14:30 - Ben finished copying a slew of letters on a word scramble page. He didn't unscramble them but did a nice job copying them.
32:16 - Ben finished connecting the word LIZARD as he followed the path.
I cleaned up the colossal mess that was created by the cookie-dough making, baked the cookies, and made migas for lunch.

Stick Puppets
Actually, I just handed the buddies some popsicle sticks and markers and they decided to draw faces on them and put on a puppet show.

00:45 - stick puppets completed and puppet show rehearsal began.
01:37 - "Mo-ommmmm! We're ready! Come watch our show!"
32:33 - I watched the last of a very silly series of puppet shows.
I didn't get a thing done during this activity.


Game Time
I left the game choice up to them. What did they choose? Twister. This particular mat used to be mine in the late 70's, early 80's. Time burned: 19:08.
I did some minor housework and chatted with a neighbor who stopped by. We marveled at how small and closely spaced the dots are, compared to how we remembered them.


Highlights High Five Magazine
Our March issue of High Five arrived today. We spent 13:08 checking out our favorite recurring features, all in the "Let's Puzzle It Out" section. Then, we found a cool triangle collage in the "Let's Make It" section. One of us decided to make one. Total time burned: 31:03. While Ben was drawing, clipping, and pasting his triangles, I finished cleaning up our lunch dishes, started a load of laundry, and packed two lunches for parent's night out at the YMCA. Wahoo!!

Of the activities, their favorites were Mosaics (Ace) and Pipe Cleaner Fun (Ben). Isn't it funny that the activity that each of them liked the best was the one that the other didn't manage to complete?