Keep a Game and Art Box on hand for your preschooler to entertain himself. Fill a shoe box, or other cardboard box with art materials, puzzles and other games, and keep it away for a rainy day - literally! When the weather is too bad to play outside, simply drag the box out, and let your child explore. These boxes are also great to send with your kids when they go to visit their grandparents.

Here are some of the things you can include:

• Picture puzzles
• Humpty Dumpty puzzles. Cut out an egg shape from cardboard, and paint on a pair of eyes, and a big brown belt in the middle. Cut into pieces - the younger the child, the fewer the number of pieces. Drop the pieces in a small ziploc bag, and into the box.
• Wash and cut out pairs of juice box fronts - pair up different flavors, and mix all these up in a ziploc bag. Drop this into the box too.
• Cover bottle lids with stars and hearts stickers on each, and put these into another bag. She can match these in pairs.

To take care of art supplies, throw in(in separate ziploc bags)

• wrapping paper pieces
• craft foam pieces
• pieces of felt
• paints and crayons
• glue,
• glitter gel
• stickers
• satin ribbons
• craft shells

You probably can’t have messy crafts supplies to occupy your child on a long drive, but you can have crayons, marker pens etc.. Stick a piece of clear plastic on the inside of a blank paged book, to form a pocket. Throw in a few crayons and markers in there, and keep the book in the dashboard. Pull out when you need a break from that non stop chatter.

Enjoy!