My boys are all 3.5 years apart in age. Which means it’s so easy to lump them all together and try and make one activity fit for all three in one go. But the difference between my 18 month old and 4.5 year old is SOOOOOO vast, that modification is necessary for *almost* everything we do. It’s why I L.O.V.E. simple activities that I can easily modify for each boy with minimal effort.

Minimal effort is necessary for ✌️ reasons:
1. Everyone wants to play at once and I need to be able to switch it up on the fly
2. I need it to be easy enough for my 3 and 4.5 year old to do on their own
3. And bonus points for being able to also set it up for little brother 😉

This stacking hair tie drop hits all those points AND has another extra credit point for costing less than $5 🙌🙌🙌 I hit our local Dollar Tree (my other-other home away from home, behind only Target) and got a paper towel holder and two packs of hair ties and was good.to.go!

Brixton (4.5) worked with the small fuzzy hair ties and practiced his pattern skills. He’s learning about more advanced patterns in school (ABC, AABB, AAB, ABB vs the simpler AB patterns) so having such a wide variety in colors really opened up the options for him! This is one of his favorite things to pull out when we’re waiting for the bus and need to do something to keep us busy for that 10ish minutes of down time.

Colston (3) is still mastering his fine motor skills and the different resistance between the two sizes really boggle his complete mind. He really only needs a couple of each size and will experiment with how much force is needed with each size in order to get them onto the holder. It’s so fun to watch his mind work as he plans out his approach for each one he picks up.

Everett (18 months) is still working on getting his fine motor skills under control. I set out the bigger ones and he went to town trying to figure out how to get them onto the holder. This requires A LOT of focus on his part, so this is one of my favorite “mama needs 30 minutes to prep dinner or we aren’t eating tonight” activities.

This sososo simple activity hit both of my requirements for minimal effort, and is one of my go-to activities whenever I need to keep one kid super occupied so I can get something accomplished. I especially love it when they all get involved and cheer each other on. 3 boys so close in age means we have a lot of bickering and wrestling and generally driving each other crazy going on, but activities like this presents each kid with their own challenge and the others can relate, so when Everett manages to get a hair tie all the way on, on the first try, we ALL celebrate with him!

Have you tried an easy stacking activity? If you do, we’d love to see! Tag us on Instagram @thebplusmama and give us a follow to see what we’re up to on a day-to-day basis!