When it’s looking like a full day of rain, one of the tricks we have in our back pocket is the $15 challenge. It’ll last all day, spark their creativity – and it’s great little maths and economics activity, whilst being fun!
Capsule x Warehouse Stationery
When it’s a rainy Sunday – or, worse, the fourth consecutive day of rain in the school holidays – and I’ve exhausted all our activity ideas of trampoline parks, the museum, the stardome, I normally implement the $15 Challenge Day.
This challenge day – besides being about keeping our sanity during school holidays – is all about creativity, a fair bit of math’s and economics, plus some quality time together.
Now, It doesn’t have to be $15 – you can go $5, $10, $20, whatever works best for your budget. I have two kids, so the day costs $30 – and most times, I can fill a whole day with this activity.
The morning starts with (an outrageously long allotment of time to get out of the house, even though we’re just going up the road, of course) a trip to the shops.
I give them each $15 to spend – it’s muuuuch easier if it’s all in one place, so we head straight to Warehouse Stationery.
The idea is it’s totally over to them what they spend this cash on. It’s no quick dash to the shop – the kids always take this very seriously as to how best spend this money to get the most bang for buck. They treat is with the same reverence as when they’re spending their own pocket money. They know that after lunch we’ll get to use what they spent their money on (and hopefully it will be a good few hours’ worth of fun), so it’s not just about finding something cute to look at. My boys are both pretty crafty, so that definitely helps.
This is a day I always feel good about it, because there are so many good educational parts to this process. There’s the numbers side of it – my three-year-old is too young for this, but the 10-year-old does a math’s workout, constantly adding up different combinations of items to ensure they squeeze out every cent of that $15. But besides that, they’re thinking creatively of what they could buy and make, they’re helping each other, they’re talking to the friendly Warehouse Stationery staff and making their purchases at the checkout.
OUR CHALLENGE DAY
We got the head start on the school holidays and did our $15 challenge last weekend. When the boys were eating their breakfast and I told them we were doing the challenge day, they both cheered and voluntarily started brushing their teeth so we could get moving and give it a go.
Because they’re lucky ducks – and I wanted to give you some examples of what you can do with $15 – I let them have a couple more goes than normal.
Here’s a few $15 challenge results:
The Artist
This was the 10-year-old’s purchase – which came as a bit of a surprise! He has been getting into sketching, so used his $15 to buy a sketch pad ($8.99), a Faber-Castell 2B pencil ($1.45), a Faber-Castell 2H pencil ($2.99) and a large eraser (2 pack $1.50).
Total: $14.93
The Dinosaur:
We found this cute paper mache dinosaur (it’s about 28cm x 16.3cm x 7.5cm) for $9 and a Uniti Acrylic paint 12 Pack for $5.50. The added bonus? The 10-year-old had never even heard of paper mache before, so we started working on a paper mache pinata! (You just need paper and a paste – 1 cup all purpose flour with 2 cups tap water).
Total: $14.50
The Fairies
The two young girls next door are obsessed with fairies at the moment, so the boys put together a gift for their fairy garden. They got this cute little Uniti DIY Wood Fair Door ($4.50), and then a Uniti 12 pack of paints ($5.50) to paint it – plus, a pack of 50 tiny little multicoloured flowers to decorate ($4)
Total: $14.50
The Toddler Haul
While the three-year-old doesn’t have the same strategic and mathematical skills as the 10-year-old, he loved following his lead and copying his brother agonising over what to spend his money on. He had his heart set on a sticker book before we left the house, so he went for a Crayola Bluey Color & Sticker Book ($8.99), a Paw Patrol 3 sheet sticker pack (a steal at $2!) and a single 4oz Play-Doh tub ($3)
Total: $13.99
The Pirate
Near the check-out we found this cute little Faber-Castell Creativity for Kids Mini Kits, which are reasonably priced and have everything you need to complete a little project. There was a lot of umming and ahhing, whether to get the message in a bottle, the friendship bracelets kit or the mini dinosaur garden (all of which were $14), but we went for building our own pirate ship which definitely kept the kids busy (and would make such a good little gift!)
Total: $14
Other recommendations:
Some big ticket items that would wipe out a decent chunk of your $15 (but still perhaps leave room for something small, like a roll of washi tape – $1.50, stickers – $1.99, balloons – $1.97 or pipe-cleaners – $1.99, or maybe even a Chupa Chups lollipop $0.60) that really caught our eyes were:
Oven Bake Clay DIY Kit, $10
Crayola Light-Ups Snowman, $11.98
Inkredibles Bluey Poster (using Magic Ink – pen included), $14.99
Flamingo Ring Toss Game, $8
The Fishing Game, $12
Wobbly Worms Tower Balancing Game, $15
What Am I Game, $15
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