Easy and fun indoor activities for kids always come in handy when at home with a sick kid. So on a ‘sick leave’ occasion I got the corn starch building blocks out and we had some fun.
It’s not the first time we integrated the corn starch building blocks into our creative play and I knew that Victoria loves them. So I took out our corn starch building blocks and tools and got to business.
I told Victoria I wanted to make a princess and asked her if she’d like to help. “I’ll just watch you do it” was the reply of my little sick girl – my poor little one had fever – but she did grab a small chair to join me at the play table. That was not the answer I was fishing for as I was hoping to have some time to get some chores done… But OK… I went with the flow and started with the princess’ dress.
Before jumping into this activity, if you want to know more about these corn starch thingies – if you haven’t played with them before – I have a small explanation at the end of the post.
We used for this princess craft:
- Corn starch building blocks
- Special cutting knife (that came together with the box we bought)
- Wet sponge or towel
We cut the corn starch building blocks to make them thinner, pressed them on the wet towel and then stuck them against each other to make a circle, which would be the bottom of the dress. Then we continued doing the same and building the dress upwards and making it a bit narrower as we got higher…
Actually, Victoria could build the dress by herself, but I did most of the work as my sick kid was not really in the mood. Instead she got busy preparing the ornaments and stuck them on the dress. That was fine too. Although it did not give me the free time I was hoping for, decorating the dress was the starting point to have Victoria forget about her fever for a while.
When the dress was done I asked her: “What now?”. “Let’s build the rest of it” she said. Great, finally she was joining in! Then we added the body, shoulders and head.
I peeled a spiral out of a brown starch building block and Victoria glued it to the head as we started with the hair.
Then Victoria rolled some of the starch building blocks between her fingers to make the eyes, nose and mouth, and I fiddled with the crown.
Now the only thing left was for Victoria to add the arms and our princess was ready. And it brought a smile on my sick little girls’ face – which at the end of the day is more important than the free time I was hoping to get out of this activity. We actually made this princess a while ago (when Victoria was 4 – shame on me that it took more than one year to post this!)
This is one of those great indoor activities for kids, and if you try it, I bet you’ll going to want to play again and again with corn starch building blocks! We did a princess….but with a bit of imagination the sky is the limit as to what you can do with these things 🙂
Corn starch building blocks: We have been playing with cornstarch building blocks since the kids are 2 years old. Although the recommendation on the box is 3+, smaller kids can also play with them under supervision. As they are made out of corn starch, the blocks are safe (even if kids put them in their mouth) and 100% biodegradable. There are different brands selling this: Magic Nuudles (in US)
, FisherTip (in Europe)
and if you want more info, check this video (you can even download templates and get some extra inspiration). All in all I think it’s a great thing to have in the house when you want to do creative indoor activities for kids
To wrap up: If you’re looking for some fun, creative and no mess indoor activities for kids, then playing with corn starch building blocks might just save your day just like it saved mine! This is one of the easiest crafty indoor activities for kids ever and it stimulates their imagination and creativity.
Lovely princess colourful princess :0)