Beans, beans, beans, beans

Now that winter is in full swing, the boys and I find ourselves indoors a lot! We really miss being able to step outside and play with our neighbors in the warm sunny air already. I find myself trying new indoor activities to keep us occupied. If the activity has some educational value that's always a bonus. A friend of mine made this suggestion to me (Thanks, K.). It's easy and inexpensive. You get a big, shallow plastic tub and fill it with dry beans. Set some tractors and digging tools in it and let the kids play. My friend made a great suggestion of choosing the darkest bean available so they are easy to see when it's time to clean them up. The darkest beans I found at our store were pinto beans. They looked pretty dark in the store, but when I got them home I realized they matched my carpet perfectly.This makes any scattered beans difficult to find the carpet. Oops. A simple solution? Lay out a very light colored vinyl tablecloth (or flat sheet, towel, blanket) under the plastic box to make for more contrast in color. When the boys are done playing in the bean box, I can gather up the tablecloth, dump the beans back into the box, put on the lid and stash it away for another rainy/wintry day.