Material shelf · nothing to buy, nothing to wait for · 27 activities

Everything that needs nothing at all

Twenty-seven of the thirty-five activities in the library run on what is already in your kitchen, your recycling and your drawers.

This is most of the library. A pair of tongs and some cotton wool, a strip of tape down the hall, a shoebox with a slot in it, half a sponge and two bowls, a ping pong ball and a straw. The three-step instruction hunt goes furthest of all and needs no object of any kind, just your voice and a room with things already in it, which is the one to remember on a train and on the fourth straight day of rain.

Pick by how much time you have before it is needed. With none at all, start with the ones that are already assembled: tongs and an ice tray, pegs round the rim of a tub, a line of tape along the hallway, a sponge between two bowls. With five minutes you can add the ones that want a stack of cards drawn or a dozen numbers written in the bottom of an egg box. With half an hour and a craft knife you get the built ones, and those are gathered in Make It Yourself, where each build says what it involves.

The substitutes named on every one of these pages are real ones. Cotton wool balls where a bought set would have pom-poms, because cotton wool squashes slightly under the tongs and a grip a few millimetres off still holds. Milk bottle lids where it would have wooden discs, because a 4 cm lid is flat, light and easy to pinch by the rim. Penne pasta and felt tips where it would have beads. In most cases the household version is the better object, and there are more of them.

Sizes are the one thing worth reading before you start. Anything that slides through the middle of a toilet roll tube is too small for an age that still investigates with its mouth, which is why the posting discs are at least 5 cm and jam jar lids at 6 to 7 cm are the easiest thing in the house that passes.

The twenty-seven

Ordered by the age they suit best. Each line gives the setup time and the play time, so you can choose by what tonight looks like rather than by what it teaches.

• Cardboard Slotting and Coin Drop Your child turns a disc until it lines up with the slot, posts it, and listens for it landing. 15 min, once · 5 to 10 min · household only
• Clothespin Pinching Your child squeezes a wooden clothes peg open and clips it onto the rim of a bowl, and then does it forty more times. no setup · 5 to 10 min · household only
• Kitchen Tongs and Ice Tray Transfer Your child picks up a cotton wool ball with kitchen tongs, carries it across the table and drops it into an ice cube tray, twelve cups in a row. no setup · 5 to 10 min · household only
• Posting and Slotting Your child pushes a plastic lid through a slot cut in a tub, hears it land, and then takes the tub lid off and finds it again. 2 min · 5 to 10 min · household only
• Sponge Squeezing Your child soaks a sponge in one bowl, carries it dripping to the other, and squeezes it out with both hands until the first bowl is empty. 2 min · 5 to 10 min · household only
• Walking the Balance Line Your child walks the length of a strip of tape stuck to the floor, slowly, and then turns round and walks back. 2 min · under 5 min · household only
• Water Pouring and Transfer Your child pours water from one small jug into another, and then back again, and again, until the table is wet. 3 min · 5 to 10 min · household only
• Cardboard Post Office and Sound Drop Your child holds a picture card, says the sound its word starts with, and posts it through the slot marked with that letter. 15 min, once · 10 to 20 min · household only
• Color Shade Grading Your child lays a handful of squares in a line, darkest at one end and palest at the other. 2 min · 5 to 10 min · household only
• Mirror Feelings Copycat Your child pulls the face on the card, sees it in the mirror next to yours, and hears you name the feeling that goes with it. 2 min · under 5 min · cards you draw
• Straw Blow Ping Pong Race Your child blows a ping pong ball across the table through a straw, and races it to a strip of tape at the far end. no setup · under 5 min · household only
• Three-Step Instruction Hunt You give three instructions in one breath, and your child goes and does all three, in order, without help. no setup · 3 to 5 min · nothing at all
• Tweezer Transfer Challenge Your child lifts dried chickpeas one at a time with a pair of tweezers and puts each one into its own small well. 2 min · 5 to 10 min · household only
• Blindfold Rope Path Walk Your child follows a rope laid along the floor with her eyes closed, finding the turns with her feet while your voice tells her what is coming. 2 min · 5 to 10 min · household only
• Button Sewing Card Your child sews real buttons onto a punched card with a shoelace, up through one hole and down through the other, until the card is covered in buttons. 15 min, once · 10 to 20 min · household only
• Egg Carton Counting Grid Your child reads the number written in the bottom of an egg carton cup and drops in exactly that many beans, one at a time, twelve cups in a row. 15 min, once · 10 to 20 min · household only
• Painters Tape Floor Balance Track Your child walks a line of tape stuck to the floor without stepping off it, then does it again carrying something. 4 min · 10 to 20 min · one substitute needed
• Story Sequence Cards Your child puts four or five cards into the order the thing actually happened, and then tells you the story they make. 2 min · 5 to 10 min · household only
• Weighted Pod Sorting Your child picks up two pots that look exactly alike, decides which one is heavier, and keeps going until all ten are in pairs. 15 min, once · 5 to 10 min · household only
• Balance Beam Coin Carry Your child walks a taped line heel to toe carrying a small stack of coins on a saucer, and discovers that the only way across is slowly. 2 min · 5 to 10 min · household only
• Clock Face and Hands Match Your child sets the hands on a paper clock to match a card, and the card says what happens at that time in his own day. 15 min, once · 10 to 20 min · household only
• Paper Folding Precision Challenge Your child folds a square of paper corner to corner, presses the crease with a thumbnail, and finds out four folds later whether the first one was straight. no setup · 10 to 20 min · household only
• Bucket Stilts Balance Track Your child stands on two upturned tins, holds a rope in each hand to keep them under her feet, and walks a taped line across the garden. 15 min, once · 10 to 20 min · household only
• Maze Blueprint Mapping Your child tapes a maze onto the floor and then draws it on paper as a plan, or draws the plan first and builds to it. 2 min · 20 min or more · household only
• Plant Care and Growth Measuring Your child grows a bean from a dried one in the cupboard, waters it on a schedule that is hers, and cuts a paper strip to its height every morning. 2 min · 5 min a day, for weeks · household only
• Soap Carving and Safe Whittling Your child cuts a shape out of a bar of soap with a blunt tool, slowly, and the shavings go everywhere. 5 min · 20 to 40 min · household only
• Cardboard Loom Yarn Weaving Your child weaves a small square of cloth on a loom cut from a cereal box, over four or five sittings, and it takes as long as it takes. 15 min, once · 20 min or more · household only

A couple of these want one thing you may have to fetch, like low-tack tape or a plain bar of soap, and the line says so before you open the page.

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