how to keep a toddler entertained

Later this month, I'm scheduled to do a little workshop with some ladies who have recently graduated from transitional housing through Lydia Place, a local women and children's shelter. The topic of my workshop: DIY kids' crafts! I'm so excited to meet these women and share a few easy, cheap ideas. We don't have a ton of money to spend on all the cool new toys, or a rainbow of natural play dough so this subject is one I've researched and explored kind of a lot. The funny thing I've learned is that there will be a few "real toy" hits -- for example, George still loves his wooden shape sorter and he daily plays with puzzles -- but by and large, you can get away with giving your kid spoons, whisks, bowls, garbage, and he'll be just as entertained as if you'd spent a zillion dollars on an array of beautiful, handcrafted wooden toys. 

At the workshop, I'll be sharing recipes for play dough and fingerpaint and all of that stuff, but I've recently sort of accidentally stumbled upon two major wins: rainbow rice and an odd use for an old oatmeal carton. 

George is just now getting to the stage where I can trust that he won't put things in his mouth, so until now, sensory boxes have been a no-go. Knowing how good it feels, I'd love to offer him a container of dry beans to sink his little hands into, but there are plenty of Italian markets in his future, so I'll keep the choking hazards to a minimum right now. Somewhere, I saw a picture of kids playing in a bin of rainbow-colored rice, and I decided to replicate it using a little rubbing alcohol, food coloring and a bag of white rice left over from the last time I made a microwavable heating pad. I put a cup and a half of rice into each of six ziplock baggies (though any container with a lid would probably do), added about two teaspoons of rubbing alcohol and about 10 drops of food coloring. I shook and smooshed the bags around until the color was evenly distributed, then I opened the bags and let the rice dry. The rice doesn't absorb the alcohol, unlike it would water, so the drying time was pretty short. 

I didn't take a picture of the rice arranged in a nice, even rainbow, but here's George, in the midst of his nearly hour-long first session of play:

We had fun hiding his little plastic pig in the rice, spooning it into a seahorse stolen from the sandbox, naming the colors and had admittedly less fun trying to convince him to keep the rice in the box. 

The other DIY is so easy and so weird -- to me, anyway -- that I won't blame you if you disbelieve in its amazingness. I've heard of making old Quaker oats containers into drums and knitting boxes, but the book Slow and Steady, Get Me Ready offered the idea that led to turning an oats carton into a... straw sorter. 

 I covered the outside of the carton with wrapping paper, leaving the top as it was (though paint is always an option, or if you're feeling especially fancy, mod podge-ing another piece of pretty paper to the lid). Using a regular hole punch, I made holes around the top of the lid, about an inch apart, as far in as my totally standard hole punch would allow. As two-thirds of our family enjoys drinking most everything from a straw, we have tons of straws. I cut the bendy parts off of ten straws, then put them in the container and handed it to George. He'll spend at least 15 minutes at a time meticulously inserting the straws into the holes (or, hole, as he has one favorite), opening the lid and extracting the straws to start over again. It's helped along his counting skills, as he likes to count the straws as they go in, and his dexterity is improving, too. He often wakes up and, upon walking into the living room in the morning, requests "game" which I play with him for a few minutes, then leave him to do alone while I make breakfast. Totally free, and miraculously engaging. 

Do you have any tried-and-true recipes or projects that I could share with my workshop?