Fun, mess free activities for 3.5 boy

[milkyman]

I am pg with dc2. Have a lively boy - try playdough, crafts but he loses interest and constantly wants me to play physical games with him. He enjoyed moving sand and magic painting today abd wondered if anyone could recommend something along similar lines?

My 3.5 year old likes dry rice or lentils on a tray with his toy diggers / dumpers, dry pasta for his play kitchen, taking plastic animals / plastic people in the bath and playing safari/swimming pool/holidays...also in the bath (mess contained!) he liked coloured bath fizzers and homemade bath paint and shaving foam.

Sink full of cornflour and water or bubbles
Vegetable painting
Magic sand (baby oil and flour)
Lego bricks in water
Paint pasta
Bread threading
Sting ... Get a frame to knot it round
Peg boards
Paper a scissors and let him cut it all up!

From 2.5 - 6 years, our DS loved his big stacking boxes of animals and of cars. He used to get a new one most weeks from pound shop or boot sale, and inherited quite a lot from older cousins and friends' kids. Many happy hours sorting the animals into 'fierce or friendly', 'paddy paws or stompy feet', 'smooth or furry' - getting more and more specific as his viewing of David Attenborough DVDs increased!

Is Brio (or cheap supermarket equivalent) messy? That was also a big hit.

I was always on the lookout for games that he could play with a small amount of input from me - if he'd been driving his cars around the kitchen floor for 15 mins, it only needed me to ask how many dinosaurs would fit into that big dumper truck and he was off again. 15 mins later, (and my work nearly done) it was very quick to give him a washing up bowl of warm suds and get him to decide which animals had done the marathon and needed a bath!

I found that his 'independent playing stamina' increased from about 3.