Construction Zone

I had seen this idea in a family magazine a while back and thought it was great. A perfect way to entertain my son while cooking dinner. It consisted of a cookie sheet, flour, and some construction toys. The idea behind it is that you tot will push around the flour like it were dirt at a construction site. Easy and entertaining enough. Let's give it a try.

I decided to improve upon it just a little and had amazing results. First off, actual food instead of flour. Nick ate. And ate. And ate. And had lots of fun doing it. We did this at lunch time and were at the table for about 45 minutes. Usually, he is squirming out of his chair after about 10 minutes max. What a success! This could easily be done at snack time, dinner time, or like I said before, while you are preparing dinner.

I also decided to use a deeper baking pan, instead of a cookie sheet, because I figured the depth would equal less mess (I was right).

I used Kix cereal, carrot sticks, turkey dogs, Triscuit crackers, broken up graham crackers, and Nick's favorite "funny cheese" or known to the rest of us as shredded cheddar and mozzarella. I was looking for different flavors, textures, shapes, and sizes to apply them to a contruction site. Think: carrot sticks as lumber and Kix as rocks. You get the idea.

Other good food ideas: thin apple slices, grapes, peas, broccoli, goldfish crackers, pretzel sticks. You can use what you have on hand, the possibilities are endless.

Behold:

Added bonus: works manual dexterity, and hand eye-coordination.And yes, I would think of this somewhat gleefully while watching him at work.

And into the dump truck.

And from dump truck into mouth. Which reminds me, probably best to use somewhat next toys and to have washed them of with gentle soap beforehand obviously.

Stack 'em up

'Dozing the funny cheese

Toward the end of the 45 minutes, enjoying the last "plank"