Confident Foundation

5 Ideas to Beat Cabin Fever

It’s that time of year–the one where you and the kids have been cooped up inside for months, you can feel spring just around the corner, but not quite here, and everyone is going crazy!!! Even here in Texas one day it’s 70 and beautiful and the next it’s 30 and blowing wind that makes me feel like I’m back in Wyoming.
While I’m a firm believer that I am not here to entertain my kids there comes a point where they can only be expected to fight occupy themselves and watch SuperWhy so much–amIright??? So if you’re looking to shake things up here are 5 easy, fun, great ways to beat cabin fever!
1. Create a “Treasure Box” My mother-in-law loves to garage sale and since moving down to Texas she’s gotten me seriously hooked on it. One of her gifts for the kids was this ‘treasure box” full of random crazy items from broken jewelery, beads, bells, stones,  buttons, little cars and houses, ribbon, and who knows what else! Basically if we come across it at a garage sale and it’s crafty and marked 25 cents it goes in the box! Both kids *LOVE* this box! They will pour it out onto their table and sort through it all, making piles, designs, playing with the different items, pouring them in and out of the jar–basically it keeps them both entertained for hours! ((as you can see this is FULL of chocking hazards so this is a “adult in the same room” type of activity and not recommended if you have babies up and around))

2. BabbaBox – take one look at my Preschool Musts and Mini Monster Activities Boards and you’ll see I’m ALL about fun kids crafts! The things is that while I often have the best of intentions so many of the ideas I find never make it off of the internet and into our house. As a work from home mom I’m SO busy all the time so when I found out about BabbaBox I thought it was sheer genius!!!

Each month, the BabbaBox is delivered right to your door and features a bunch of fun activities all organized around a theme that kids 3-7 love. My favorite part is that it helps us parents spend more quality time with our kiddos without having to think up or search for the creative ideas or go out and buy materials. All you need to do is open up the box and jump right in-the *perfect* thing for those cabin fever days!

3.  Odds and Ends- Maybe it’s just my kids but they LOVE playing with non-toy items all the time so when they’re getting tired of their brand new Christmas, really already??? toys we go searching for fun items–this colander and pipe cleaner activity kept them busy for a good 45 minutes. Other things that are always winners? Pots and pans, spatulas, and of course the classic boxes!

4. Playdough – Perhaps a little obvious but I had to mention it because, seriously, you can’t go wrong with it!!!! Be sure to make your own, it takes all of 5 minutes and is so much nicer than the store kind (and much more forgiving on carpet when the inevitable horror of the carpet mashing happens) Pinterest is full of amazing DIY Playdough Recipes–my new favorite is the Playdough that uses Koolaid instead of food coloring–we made it recently with fruit punch, it was bright and smelled amazing!

5. Set up Play Stations – take a page from the day care and preschool book and at the beginning of the day set up a few different play stations–for example blocks, dress up, play people & houses. The kids get to choose which they want to play with, then when you say it’s time they switch to a different one. This will probably work best if you bring the toys/items into a room that isn’t surrounded with other toys-like the front room. If you rotate toys this would be a great way to bring some that you’ve stored away back out for some excited re-acquainting!

Don’t forget to sign up for the BabbaBox newsletter it’s full of more great ideas to beat cabin fever and save you time!

Thanks to BabbaCo for sponsoring today’s post!

Nicole Elliott

 

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