Magnet Board!

Browsing through Target one day, I passed by a big magnetic whiteboard and picked it up and wanted it - really wanted it - for some unnameable reason! I held it (wide, it was a big one) in my hands, and tried to brainstorm, between feeding Charlie bits of snack bar pretzel, and maneuvering around the scrapbooking mamas and college students that for some reason had suddenly flooded the aisle, ways in which I could put it to good use for Charlie (age 1) and Sam (age 9) and the varying ages of kids who visit regularly.

So....I bought the board, and went next door to Staples and bought some magnetized printer paper and figured I'd just wing it when I got home. For my 9 year old, I Googled all of his favorite sports team logos and players, as well as various animals (all kinds of snakes, birds, butterflies, sea creatures) and copied/pasted them into a Word document, to print out onto the magnet-paper. We cut them out and before I knew it, he and Summer (his best friend) were playing "magnet board football" and "nature school".

For the littler kiddos, they enjoy the animals, as well as trees and flowers, geometric shapes, words (ie., their names, other easy sight words - "ball" etc.) in fun fonts, even our family's faces, and the faces of their friends (to which, I had to add bodies to with my handy Sharpie marker)!

Fun fun. And the best part is that it's multifunctional. You can gather up the magnets before a car trip and bring along a cookie sheet for portable magnet fun!
Here's Charlie in front of the Magnet board...