Marble/Ball Ramp

We found this idea on Pinterest a couple of days ago and did this while my son was sick. It was a fun activity that involved relatively quiet play - which I find ideal for a sick toddler. You can find the detailed instructions on the blog Made by Joel. (p.s. this blog has so many fun children's activities). It was originally intended to be a "Marble Run" made from a cereal box, but we don't have marbles in our house - not when you have a toddler who puts everything in is his mouth. (Case in point - while I am writing this, he is playing with Play-Doh, and I just caught him putting it in his mouth. Of course I made him spit it out....in case you were wondering). So instead of using marbles, we used larger balls - about the size of a golf ball.

This only took about 5 minutes to make - cut one panel out of the cereal box, cut that panel into 3 strips, and then tape them to the inside to create ramps (and make sure to cut holes at the bottom of each ramp so the ball can roll to the ramp below).

My son thought this was such a fun toy. After using it to roll balls down, he used it for a car ramp for his Hot Wheel Cars. It's funny to see what ideas your kids come up with.