Any ideas for activities foe 2 and 3 years old? Looking for a messy play that is going to be FUN and CHEAP!!!!

Answer 1

Go for home made paper mache.

PLain flour and water mixed into a lovely gue. Torn up newspapaer. Stick the gooey paper onto an inflated baloon. Once the paper has dried, burst the baloon and decorate / paint faces onto the shape.

You can have them model just about anything.

Enjoy the mess!!

Answer 2

I have a nearly three year old, so I know how difficult this one can be, especially in the winter AND on a budget. There should be cheap or free activities at your local library or leisure centre, we go to afternoon play at our leisure centre as it also gives your children the opportunity to be with others their own age. At home we do simple cooking, fairy cakes, jam tarts, biscuits, flapjacks (also recipes that involve licking the bowl clean are always popular). I also encourage my kids to help with the washing up, my eldest loves to think she's helping mummy, and what better than to wash up a few bits whilst you're pottering about in the kitchen. Another idea, could be making play dough, it's just flour and water, you could add food colouring if you want! Buying play dough can be cheap also, and it keeps them happy for hours. Otherwise good old cut and stick. Start collecting egg boxes, sweet wrappers, any old bits and bobs, keep them in a box and be creative. The only limits are your imagination.
Hope this helps. Best of luck!!!

Answer 3

Messy, fun and cheap? How about take 10$ and head to the nearest dollar store. Buy fingerpaints, glitter, cotton balls, and some other little things like that. Then, ask the clerk or someone who works there if they have any spare boxes, chances are.. they'll have tonnes. Take as many as you can, go home and cut them all open lay them on the floor, put down the supplies and let the kids have fun. But make sure they're wearing old clothes, cause they're not going to come clean that easily.

HAVE FUN. My kids love it.

Answer 4

If you have packets and tins in your cupboards get them out and let your littleones build with them. Obviously not too high with tins of soup or they get bumped heads. But they learn wonderful skills like hand/eye coordination and that big boxes are best at the bottom of the pile and cylinders can roll away and that if you dont place a bigger shape centrally then it will fall off. Fantastic for tiny brain problem solving, and totally free, you dont even need to go out of your door.

OR even more fun, go to your nearest electrical store and get a large cardboard box, just big enough for them to climb into as a house/boat/car/stable. Add scarves or sheets atatched with clothes pegs as doors or as requested. Just have hours of fun. NB little people cant usually open pegs without help.

Answer 5

jello is a great sensory activity for 2 and 3 years olds. Make jello the usual way and spoon some on glossy paper when ready.( you may even use two flavours/colours) it feels great on the hands, smells great and looks pretty cool when it dries on the paper and of course, very cheap. Have fun.

Answer 6

Buy lining paper from a wallpaper shop. Spread it out on the floor. Using poster paints fill some large trays with desired colours, usually primaries. Next, paint the kids bare feet, or hands, and let them run up and down the paper. They really laugh at having their feet painted and its hilarious watching them trying to follow their own steps.

Answer 7

Boil some spaghetti and add blue (or any colour) food dye to the water and then make patterns on paper with it. Because of the starcha s it dries it sticks.
Or mix water and cornflour to a paste (lots of it) on a tin tray and push fingers through it
Or put shaving foam on a window and draw pictures in it.

Answer 8

You can finger paint in:
shaving cream-this is great because it is an extremely CLEAN mess!
pudding
whipped cream

Let them dig with cups, spoons, little shovels, plates, cars, anything you can think of in a big tub of:
bird seed
rice
planting soil
sand
or put scissors and paper in a tub and let them cut away

Let them clean out a pumpkin
Make playdough-out of water, flour, food coloring, liquid starch and salt---this makes the absolute BEST playdough EVER and no cooking!!!


Let them paint with:
strings, marbles, whisks, spatulas, forks, feathers, pom poms etc.

Let them finger paint with mud

mix elmers white glue and liquid starch together to make slime!
read the book 'oobleck' to them and then add blue food coloring to the slime so that they can play with their own oobleck!

Tear art: let them tear paper and make pictures out of them. My class just did this for autumn. We made autumn trees! :)

Answer 9

i can think of two right away and most schools or daycares have plenty of both


SAND AND WATER TABLES...OR JUST SAND MIXED WITH WATER...
you can wet only some sections of the sand box and leave the others dry or bring both into the classroom if its cold you can kieep them seperate and use containers, scoops and funnels in the water table or dispans on a table...or for more fun again mix the two in smaller amts ....ive use both methods.....i even buried different groups of toys in the sand for the children to find (when studing bugs i buried bugs, when studing dinosaurs i buried them and for each dino found i gave out stickers).....

make your own playdough (there are some great recipes avail )

ck with your local lumber yard or garden center and see if they have left overs or other bits and pieces that they cant sell they will give you( ive gotten enough pieces of wood for each child to use a bases for collages, or for sculptures, and even gotten contributions to help make a class garden.)

check with your parents all of them may have old craft items that you can use.

save up things like tp rolls, empty bottles and boxes and food trays(frozen meals) to use for other art projects the trays make good paint trays.

you can make your own glue with flour and water and when youre done its easy enough to wash off most things like blocks or tables/floors and the children themselves.

paint, glue and other items can be colored with food coloring.

use your imagination on other things

or even check out your local library for more ideas.

Answer 10

Take rice. Cheapest you can find.
Put in stainless steel pot
Add food colouring and stir.
Make up different colour batches
Let dry for a while.
And let them play.

I made some for my daughter's third birthday and made it into a prize bucket with all sorts of stuff being hidden in it. (i did overdo it with 20 kilo of rice ;-))
In the end i donated it to her nursery. They are still playing with it and the party was last June :-)