Dear Reader
I confess, I totally stole this idea from Pinterest; and I confess, that as most things stolen from Pinterest, it didn’t go as planned. I saw the idea for sticking toys to painter’s tape and making a toy web and I thought, “oh! this should be fun.” What I didn’t account for is that I should have done it during naptime, because I barely got it set up before the toddlers had to get involved. I think I will do this activity again but I will take my own advice and set it up during naptime. If I do it again, I’ll update!
I had my preschooler fetch toys to stick to the web (she loved that!). Finding just the right toys is harder than you’d think. Painter’s tape isn’t really all that strong, so it doesn’t hold a lot of weight. And I didn’t want anything furry/fabricky because I was worried about how well they’d stick (although as I think about it after the fact, they’d probably have been fine). Fisher Price Little People are a great option, if you have any. They’re hollow and small, easy to grab with little fingers, and stick well to the painter’s tape. The preschooler actually grabbed an eclectic variety, but what did I care?
the “game” lasted all of 5 minutes in reality, but had I had time to set it up better (aka, not been bombarded with toddlers), I think it would definitely last longer. And they did come back over and over, to get more tape off of more toys. One toddler enjoyed crawling under the tape (ironically, she’s the one eager to walk more, and almost runs), and the other enjoyed freeing the toys and would sit and pull the tape off each one.
It was pretty fun, even though it was quick. And watching them try to get the tape off was pretty entertaining. And now I have a whole roll of painter’s tape (I know we have some somewhere, but I couldn’t find it when I went looking, and it cost me all of a dollar ninety-eight to go buy a roll) to do it again. But this time I’m setting it up during naptime!
