Pasta Anyone?

This is what Big Bear looked like this morning (please ignore the sorted dirty laundry in the background - it's that time of the week again!). She was carrying all of that stuff with her everywhere she went...even the bathroom...so that Me Too wouldn't get it. She was grumpy, whiny and bored.

So...mommy had to think of something to entertain the troops. I went last week to a speaker at my Mother's Association who was talking about how kids need to play with manipulatives. It calms them and gets their creative juices flowing. As a preschool teacher, I know this but for some reason it never carries over to my mommy life. I started thinking about how I need to do more fun things at home like I do with the kids at school - especially on days like today when the girls can't seem to entertain themselves. So I pored what was left from a bag of spiral, colored pasta and some shell pasta into a couple of bowls and let the girls dig in.




They had a ball! I gave them each a muffin pan too so that could do some sorting. Big Bear has really gotten into sorting lately and immediately started putting all of the shells in on area and so on. Me Too of course doesn't know what sorting is...or what one at a time means for that matter. She dumped the whole bowl of pasta onto the muffin pan and here's what we got!





Pretty much what I expected...but it was worth it. They really enjoyed themselves, it entertained them for about 45 minutes - a long time for them, and it completely changed their moods! I need to start planning better for when I'm home on Wednesdays and Fridays and do more things like this to keep them occupied and learning. I'll just have to be prepared for the mess that comes along with it - it's worth it!