It stinks seeing your kid sick and miserable. And if you’re anything like our family, your kid has been home sick and miserable a lot this year. So I put together 5 easy, low-key activities to do with your kids when they’re on the mend, but not ready to go back to school.

[ONE] Make a book

Coloring is a pretty low-key activity to do when your kiddo is feeling under the weather. Make it special by turning all their artwork into a book. Have your little artist make a special cover, then hole punch the side and tie string to create a book bind.

[TWO] Do a Drive-In Movie – in the Living Room

This is one of my favorite “mom hacks”. Turn watching a ton of tv into an activity by setting up a “drive-in movie”. Use a box to make a “car” – and and if your kid is up for a low-key activity, have them help decorate. For a non-crafty version, bring the cozy coup (or similar vehicle toy) inside for the day. Or heck, you could even use a laundry basket with a few pillows to make it comfy. Then you’re ready for your drive-in movie marathon.

[THREE] Have a fun bath

Spending time in a steamy bathroom is generally good for a snotty nose. Make it fun by adding in glow sticks, pom poms, plastic block toys (like LEGO Duplos), or even a popsicle. And no need to wait until bedtime – you can do a fun bath at any time of day.  

[FOUR] Build a block city

You know when you get to the point where you’ve been home a few days and all the toys have been pulled out? This is the activity for then. Grab your roads rug or make roadways by drawing on a flattened box. Then use blocks, LEGOS, Magnatiles, and whatever else is already scattered around your house to erect buildings for your city.

[FIVE] Easy sensory bin

I love an easy sensory bin because it’s great to be able to pull out our bin for something simple to do to pass the time. It’s also a simple activity to put on the floor that requires little energy but is still interesting and engaging. If you need ideas, I’ve got a whole list of easy sensory bins that typically take less than 10 minutes to setup and can easily be stored away.

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If you enjoyed this post, don’t miss our other fun at-home activities! And make sure to follow One Little Small on Pinterest for even more great ideas.

Looking for an activity to keep your little leprechauns busy and out of trouble? Well, you’re in luck! This St. Patrick’s Day Sensory Bin is easy to setup and will keep your littles entertained all March long.

And the best part? Most of the items for this sensory bin can be purchased at your local grocery or dollar store. But if you’d rather have it all shipped to your doorstep, check out the shopping links below.

Here’s what you’ll need for the St. Patrick’s Day Sensory Bin:

• Large, shallow container
• Fill (such as dried green split peas or dyed green rice)
• Assorted containers and scoops
• St. Patrick’s day decorations

The Setup

I love an easy, holiday-themed sensory bin, and our St. Patrick’s Day Sensory Bin is one of my favorites. For this bin, I use dried green split peas as the fill, and throw in some St. Patrick’s Day decorations and rainbow-colored trinkets. The best part about using the green peas as the fill is that it easily transitions to a spring or Easter-themed sensory bin after St. Patty’s Day.

St. Patrick’s Day Bin Supplies Shopping Links

_{Disclosure: One Little Small is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program. The links in this post are affiliate links, meaning if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a small commission. I selected the products in this guide because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.}

You can pick up most of the supplies needed to make this sensory bin at the grocery store. But if you’d rather have everything arrive at your doorstep, you can use the shopping links below. I selected these items based on their similarity to the items I own and used for this sensory bin.

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And that’s it! All it takes is a few items – and a little bit of luck! – to make this holiday-themed sensory bin.

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Love easy sensory bins? Check out all of our sensory bin activities for more ideas!

Looking to spend some koala-ty time doing activities with your kids? Here are 5 easy Valentine’s Day themed activities and crafts to do with your little ones this month. Valentine’s Day puns not included (for the most part).

[ONE] Valentine’s Day Sensory Bin

An easy, festive activity that can be used all month long is a Valentine’s Day Sensory Bin. For our V-Day sensory bin, I dyed rice red and pink, and added in assorted (durable) heart decorations. We keep our sensory bin in a container with a lid, making it super easy to pull out and enjoy any time.

[TWO] Toilet Paper Tube Heart Painting

This is the perfect activity for a kid who loves to paint. Here’s what to do: Take an empty toilet paper roll tube. Bend one side down into a point and the opposite side inwards to form a heart. It may help to tape around the circumference of the tube to keep the heart shape. 

Pour a palette of Valentine’s Day colors onto a paper plate, give the kiddos a canvas (construction paper), and let them stamp hearts using one end of the TP roll. Soon you’ll have a beautiful masterpiece!

[THREE] Heart Mosaic Craft

I loved this craft for when Ben was a toddler. It was a super easy way to make pretty valentines for our families. And it was a lot less messy than using paint.

Here’s what to do: Cut out hearts from white or light-colored construction paper. Then cut out small pieces of red, pink, and purple tissue paper. Pour some glue or mod podge onto a paper plate. Finally, use a sponge brush to paint the hearts and put the tissue paper onto the heart. You can also use a glue stick depending on your child’s age.

Let the hearts dry overnight before sending them out as valentines – or use as decorations to hang up around the house.

[FOUR] Love Monsters

One craft we’ve had fun making this year is TP Roll Monsters. So much so that we made TP Roll Monsters on Halloween, and then made Monster Turkeys out of paper plates and TP roll tubes on Thanksgiving. Carrying the tradition through, it only makes sense to make Love Monsters out of our stock of empty toilet paper tubes. However, you can easily modify this craft to make “love bugs” instead of monsters, if that’s more your jam.

Here’s what you’ll need: a few empty toilet paper rolls, a variety of age-appropriate art supplies (such as markers, crayons, etc), an assortment of stick-on or glue on decorations (stickers, adhesive gems, small heart shapes, etc.), and googly eyes. Trust me on the googly eyes – it makes the end result so much more fun (and funny).

Then let your kiddos go to town! There’s no right way for a love monster to look, so this is a perfect craft for creative kids!

[FIVE] Make Valentines

This make seem like an obvious choice, but I’ve found that family and neighbors love receiving a Valentine in the mail from my little one – no matter how old he is.

When Ben was a baby, I traced his hand and glued it on top of a heart and then onto card stock. Other years we made a heart mosaic or just colored a heart that I later glued onto a card. The younger they are, the simpler the craft should be.

Now that he is a bit older and actually enjoys spending time making valentines, I will pick up a DIY valentines kit from the store with everything we need. That way I can enjoy making one too – instead of being focused on set-up and clean up.

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I hope you liked these easy Valentine’s Day activities a whole guac! Happy Valentine’s Day, friends!

If you enjoyed this post, don’t miss our other fun at-home activities! And make sure to follow One Little Small on Pinterest for even more great ideas.

The easiest way to customize a sensory bin

For our Valentine’s Day sensory bin, I decided to try something new for the fill – dyeing rice. I had avoided making anything so complicated for our seasonal sensory bins, but I really wanted a red and pink fill for this festive sensory bin.

Overall, it took less than an hour to dye the rice and was easier than I anticipated. And everything you need to make this sensory bin fill can be picked up during your regular grocery store trip.

Here’s what you’ll need

• Uncooked white rice 
• Vinegar
• Food coloring 
• Gallon size zip bag (1 bag per color)
• Measuring cups 
• Large pan or container for drying rice 
• Plastic fork

Steps

1. Pour desired amount of rice into bag
2. Add vinegar into the bag – 1 tbsp of vinegar per 1 cup of rice 
3. Add several drops of food coloring into the bag. The more food coloring, the more saturated the hue the rice will be.
4. Zip bag closed and shake rice around until fully coated with food coloring. It took me a few minutes of shaking and mashing the rice around to evenly coat. Add additional drops of food coloring as needed for desired color. 
5. Pour rice onto pan or container to dry. Use plastic fork to loosen any clumps.
6. Repeat for each color.
7. Optional: Occasionally stir rice around on pan to ensure even drying 

Tips

• Keep a Dustbuster handy for rice spills.
• If dyeing a large amount of rice, it may be easier to split into smaller groups. For example, I dyed 4 cups of rice in each color. I found it easier to dye 2 groups with 2 cups of rice than one group of 4 cups of rice.
• You can use any kind of uncooked white rice, but I noticed that the instant rice had the tendency to clump.
• It took a few minutes to fully coat the rice in food coloring once I added all the ingredients. And I did have to add quite a bit of red dye for the right hue. 

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Dyeing rice for a sensory bin is a great way to add some festive color to play time. It took less than an hour and used supplies we could easily pick up at the grocery store. It was definitely worth the time that it took to make!

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If you enjoyed this post, make sure to check out our other sensory bin activities. And make sure to follow One Little Small Blog on Pinterest for even more great ideas!

How to enjoy a snow day, but still stay inside

I love snow days. There’s nothing more fun than bundling and playing outside in a winter wonderland with my kiddo and dog. But I can only really handle 2 or 3 days of snow before I begin to dread the bundling and unbundling process.

Insert snow painting sensory bin. I put some snow in our sensory bin, added some paint supplies and colored water, and voila! We had fun playing in the snow without the hassle of dressing everyone up in layers of clothing to go outside.

Here’s what you’ll need

• Large, shallow container
• Fresh snow
• Paint containers
• Smaller containers and scoops 
• Colored water (water + food coloring or washable paint)
• Paint brushes 
• Droppers

The Setup

For this snow painting activity, I pulled out our trusty 28qt plastic container. Before I filled the container with snow, I laid down a bunch of old towels to cover our kitchen floor. This activity can get a bit messy, so it’s best to cover your floors prior to bringing any snow inside.

Next, set up the “painting” supplies. Take paint containers (or other containers you don’t mind getting messy) and fill with water. Then add a few drops of food coloring or washable paint in each cup. Stir until mixed.

Finish the setup by laying out your paint, paint brushes, droppers, smaller containers and scoops. Lastly, take your big sensory bin outside and fill with fresh snow.

Now you’re ready to have SNOW much fun painting a frozen masterpiece!

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Setting up a Snow Painting Sensory Bin is an easy way to enjoy the flurries without the hassle of getting everyone ready to go outside. It’s the perfect snow day activity for toddlers and preschoolers alike!

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If you enjoyed this post, make sure to check out more at-home activities! And make sure to follow One Little Small Blog on Pinterest for even more great ideas!

Looking for an easy Halloween activity? Look no further than this Halloween Sensory Bin! This sensory bin is easy to put together and will keep your kiddos entertained for hours.

Most of the items for this sensory bin can be purchased at your local grocery or dollar store. But if you’d rather have it all shipped to your doorstep, check out the shopping links below.

Here’s what you’ll need for the Halloween Sensory Bin:

• Large, shallow container
• Fill (such as red lentils or dyed orange rice)
• Assorted containers and scoops
• Halloween / spooky items

The Setup

For our family, I’ve found that the best easy sensory bins have four key elements: a big container with lid (for easy storage), fill (such as beans, dyed rice, water, bubbles, etc.), a variety of smaller scoops and container, and themed-trinkets.

For the Halloween Sensory Bin, I used my large, 28QT container as the base container. This container is great for sensory bins as it is large, but still shallow enough for little ones to use – plus it has a lid for easy storage.

Inside the bin, I used dried red lentils for the fill. Despite the name, red lentils are the perfect orange color for a spooky sensory bin. You could also use orange dyed rice for the fill.

For the smaller containers, I included some Halloween-themed items, such as a witch’s hat, mini pumpkin pail and black cat cup. Lastly, I threw in some spooky trinkets, such a spider rings, plastic bats and rats, eyeballs.

Halloween Sensory Bin Supplies Shopping Links

_{Disclosure: One Little Small is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program. The links in this post are affiliate links, meaning if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a small commission. I selected the products in this guide because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.}

You can pick up most of the supplies needed to make this Halloween sensory bin. But if you’d rather have everything arrive at your doorstep, you can use the shopping links below. I selected these items based on their similarity to the items I own and used for this sensory bin.

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And that’s it – a simple setup for a sensory bin you can use all spooky-season long. You really can’t go wrong when it comes to creating a Halloween Sensory Bin for your kiddos. Just follow these steps for creating an awesome bin.