Based on Little Miss F's love of her Circle Discovery Basket I decided to make a Metal Treasure Discovery Box. As I planned for this I was initially inspired by Nicole from The Kavanaugh Report’s guest post on The Naptown Organizer Blog use of a wire kitchen strainer as a basket. I love it when invitations to play are housed in aesthetically correspondent or complementary materials--such as having a using a natural woven basket for wooden blocks, or a tin bucket for clear plastic materials. Then I received this metal box as a gift from a visitor from Mexico and I revised my plan. It is such a lovely box and it is LMF sized! And the box offered a different challenge. I would have to be selective about the materials I gathered-they would all need to fit in a small area. Many of my initial ideas of items to include would no longer work. The whisk, the cookie cutters, mixing spoons, and canning jar lids would not fit. Then I decided to add another challenge. I decided although LMF loves her Circle Discovery Basket, I would not repeat any objects that I had already used. Eventually I determined I would include the following: Loose tea infuser Key chain with keys Bottle opener Set of fancy nesting measuring spoons The first time we offered this to Little Miss F she was completely intrigued. We’ve been using our entrance area more for Little Miss F’s play and I keep the metal treasure discovery box on the floor accessible to LMF at all times. Now that she is very mobile, she’ll seek out the box for fun play. With time the items in the box have changed. I found another set of metal nesting measuring spoons in heart-shapes that I detached from their ring so LMF can explore them separately. We find the keys all around the house, she’ll carry them with her as she goes about her daily adventures. The items tend to come and go from the box. What I love most about this play activity is I did not purchase anything new--all of the items were ‘found’ materials from our home. I think this makes a difference. LMF seems to really like that she is working with ‘real’ materials, such as keys and measuring spoons--items she sees me, my husband, and her other loved ones use every day. Interested in creating your own Metal Discovery Box? |
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