Art Station

Back in May when the kids and I went to the Iowa City Children's Museum, I got the idea to have an art station in our unfinished basement at our new house. The museum had a room that was full of little bins containing all sorts of stuff to use to "make" anything you wanted. Max could have stayed in that place for hours. He and Mya love to create/invent things and I figured it was a really cheap way to provide hours of entertainment. So I took note of what they had, used some stuff I already had, ordered a few things off of oriental trading and we were set! I had been keeping some wipes containers because I knew at some point they would come in handy because of their size/stackability and because the kids could open them easily. Also during the moving process I found lots of little containers when I was going through my teaching supplies so those came in handy as well.



Here's what I have in the individual bins: Feathers, jewels and googly eyes, foam letters, markers, crayons, colored pencils, pencils, pens, pencil sharpeners, tape, glue, scissors, stickers, play-doh, paint, paint supplies, paint brushes, dobber markers, scrap fabric, foam animal stickers, clothes pins, rubber bands, popsicle sticks, and a bigger bin full of tp rolls and paper towel rolls, yarn, old leftover invites and thank you notes from past birthday parties, and index cards. I might be missing some, but that's it for the most part. There have been times when I've questioned myself on this because of the mess it can create, but the hours of time I get because of this is worth the mess. I try to have the kids help clean up, but a lot of the times it's Ivy that completely destroys the place so I feel bad asking Max and Mya to do it all themselves. I'm guessing it will just get easier as she gets older. It also doesn't hurt that this whole thing takes place in an unfinished basement:) But note...there is no glitter in this station. That's one thing I refuse to clean up! Also, I had tooth picks at one point, but they quickly turned into a weapon and are now in my pantry:)