Winter-time Entertainment

Chicago is certainly much warmer at this time of year than I'm used to on the Canadian prairies, it's not exactly play outside weather most of the time soooooo, we've been trying to find fun ways to stay happy and entertained in our apartment without cluttering it with too many toys, spending too much money, or forgoing our damage deposit ;). Here are a few of the things we've tried out:

Making things with boxes: 
I found this link on Pintrest to ikat bag's collection of DIY box creations for kids. We decided to make a box kitchen out of some of the many boxes that are floating about here from all of my online holiday shopping.

Art . . . in the shower:
We've added food colouring to both baby shampoo a shaving cream for painting. Benjamin's also a big fan of his bath crayons.

 
Sensory Play:
The number one sensory activity in our house is playing in water. I always get help with dishes, cleaning, and Booper would happily take 10 showers or baths a day :) I've got a tub of rice that we play in when I'm feeling especially patient, but cloud dough is a huge hit in our house, as is playing with dried beans (and they're really very easy to clean up). Booper loves pretending to cook too so I'll sometimes pull out oatmeal, flour, spice jars with spices or Ovaltine in them, along with measuring cups, spoons, and bowls and let him make a gigantic mess.

Fine Motor Fun:

I'm super cheap so I scoured the recycle bin for containers that could be used to push or sort items into. Here's what we came up with :)