I love to flick through junk mail, and so my daughter has picked up this habit too. Usually I read the ones from department stores and toss the ones from the supermarket (after a quick scan for cheap nappies of course). Lately though we’ve been using them for craft.
I set my daughter up with a paper plate, toddler-scissors, a glue stick, and a bunch of supermarket catalogues. There is quite a lot to take in on those pages! She loves looking through them and deciding what she’d like to have for her pretend dinner. Then she snips them out and glues them onto her plate. It’s a great activity for practising cutting skills, and because it’s so simple she really doesn’t need any help at all. I love activities she can complete independently.
You could take this activity one step further by talking to your child about healthy eating. Conversation about food groups and making good nutritional choices is likely to happen naturally, so take advantage if the moment arises.
This activity entertains my three year old for about half an hour, and costs next to nothing. (If you don’t have paper plates in your craft box, just cut a cardboard circle out of a cereal box instead. Then it really will be a free activity!) There you have it. Next time your letterbox is overflowing with junkmail catalogues, don’t think of it as an inconvenience but rather as a helpful delivery of free craft supplies for your toddler!
great idea to use a plate, We cut out the items from the catalogue to find at the shops (to make a list, a bit of an eye spy game for Zoe, well when we go…I am fond of grocery shopping on line)
This has been my saving grace for those awkward moments when I am feeding Stella. I have set Amy up at the table with her new craft scissors and all the supermarket catalogues and she has sat and cut and pasted for ages happily! I love the idea of paper plates, very clever!
We have done this at our church toddler group, and printed out the words “Thank you God for our food” to add to it. Then added a ribbon to the back, to hang in mum’s kitchen.
If we are VERY keen, we photocopy pics of knives, forks and spoons for them to add.
What a cool idea, I’m always on the lookout for fun things to do with the kids at home during the school holidays which are easy to organize and low mess! My boys are huge fans of masterchef too so I can see them making up their own masterchef inspired games out of this! Nice idea!
Peace
From Facebook:
Natalie Monos at 6:45pm June 24
This is a great idea thanks Cath, my pair are looking thru some junkmail right now – will save it from making its way to the recycle bin and do some recyling ourselves!!
From Facebook:
Julie Mortimer at 8:00pm June 24
You are a dietitian’s dream Mum!
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Karen Askey-Doran at 9:48pm June 24
Ooooh and you can do coloured food days….like all the red foods or yellow foods….then you can do what could we take on a picnic? Or…what sort of foods help your teeth to be strong…
Too cute! You have great craft ideas.
My kids just did this at church on Sunday and then they sat and made another one while I was cooking dinner last night. It’s such a great little time filler and as other people have said, there’s so many ways to vary the activity each time.
Great idea!
You could also glue some pics onto cardboard to make a sturdy shopping game.
That is a GREAT idea Cath, and so versitile for different ages. Will do this activity on the school hols for sure.
What a great idea!! Wow Cath, where do you get them from. You should compile a book of all these fantastic, cheap, fun ideas for kids.
I’m almost tempted to pull down our “No Junk Mail” sign so we can have some fun with this one.
WOW – thanks everyone for your comments. You know I almost didn’t post this idea, thinking it was a bit ordinary! It’s funny how the simple, cost-free ideas attract so much interest, even if the final product isn’t a gorgeous piece of art for the wall. I love that you all appreciate that process is so much more important than the finished product when it comes to toddler activities!!!
We used to do that too! (They think they are too old for it now…) We also use old magazines for that kind of thing. You can also get them to find pictures of things beginning with a particular letter – it can be harder than they think. Good rainy day fun!
My kids used to do this too. As they get older, you can use this to help them withe their number skills by looking at the foods with certain prices. My grade 2 boy now gets given “money” to go “shopping” with in the catalogues & cuts out the items he wants that he can afford.
Love the paper plate idea
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