It’s here – the dead of winter! In New England that means a lot of time spent at home. With a toddler, that can be pretty tough – especially since activities can either be a hit and keep them occupied for 20 minutes or ones you think will be a hit end up taking more time to set up than actual play time! I follow a few toddler play accounts on Instagram, but for the most part rely heavily on Pinterest for activities. While none of these are particularly ground breaking, hopefully it gives you some new ideas as well.
We love making slime!! At first I found a few easy at home ways to make slime, but decided to purchase the Elmer’s Slime Kit. You can make glitter slime, clear slime – all sorts of slime. Even though it’s a semi messy activity there’s very little clean up!
Water beads are something that Sophia is just now getting into. I thought she was too young before this and really it says not for children under 3, but with supervision I’m happy to have her play and get her hands wet!
The floor is lava, but take it to the next level! Full credit goes to our nanny on this one! So there is an actual game that you can purchase, but with a few pieces of construction paper you can do this at home. Take orange paper for the lava and brown paper for rocks and make different shapes all around the room. The goal – not to touch the lava to get to the other side of the room!
Balloons have provided us endless entertainment! No real rhyme or reason for this game, but we take turns blowing up the balloons and then she lets them go around the house. She chases them all around and as the adult you work on your lung capacity – ha! We also started recently “cooking” the balloons in her play kitchen as well as making balloon soup!
Paper bags are plentiful at our house and we are always looking for ways to use them up. We love to make puppets and fun little houses out of them! You can use paper lunch bags or keep the ones you get from the store. Also, plastic drop cloths that you would use for painting are perfect for all arts and crafts! Easy clean up and keeps your space clean!
I bought this Kids Made Modern Arts and Crafts kit at the start of the pandemic last March and we are still using it with all our activities. You definitely need to be there to oversee the crafting, but this has EVERYTHING you need for arts and crafts!
Really big fans of kinetic sand over here! I know I already mentioned this in my January Amazon purchases, but it bears repeating because this is one of my favorite indoor activities!
Full credit to Gary on this fun activity! He took our empty Nespresso packages and created this little tunnel for toy cars to drive down. We like to make ramps down the couch, up the length of the hallway, etc – just different ways for the cars to go through the tunnels and we also race them!
We’re also so lucky because our nanny is incredibly creative and has taught us some things to do with Sophia too! The goal for me isn’t to have an entire day without screen time, but rather keep the TV off for chunks of time so that it feels more like a treat to watch it rather than something to occupy her time with because those times are plenty with WFH!
How do you keep your toddler engaged at home?
Yay! Go slime, go sand. I miss playing with stuff like this with the kids. So many fun things on the market. Creative play is the best.
These all look like such a blast & super engaging for a toddler! I do remember always loving arts and crafts!
Rosy Outlook
We do a lot of these things over here too. It is hard to come up with enough new stuff to keep it fun and entertaining! I like the lava idea. We have a lot of construction paper, I may have to make that a thing our next rainy day.
So many fun things to keep busy! Our kiddos have always loved those water beads. I find them to be soothing, so I sometimes play with them, too!
Love it!! And best idea ever to just set-up a tarp on the floor and let her dig right into the fun and mess! You are a great mom.
It can be so hard to keep the occupied for a significant amount of time. These are some great suggestions! I have a love hate relationship with slime. The Floor Is Lava is such a fun one! There’s also a few youtube videos with songs that my boys like putting on and then running to the couch to beat the clock.
We love kinetic sand!! We’ve never made slime, but I’ve always wanted to!!
So much fun! We LOVE kinetic sand over here, and I’ve had those water beads on my Amazon list for what seems like forever. Need to pick them up for Lil’ Miss <3
Green Fashionista
Pinning this for later! I’m trying to prepare for the toddler stage before it gets here haha
My nieces still love making slime and they are 8 and 11. What fun activities!
They look like fun ideas! We were so lucky in our lockdown when we had it last year that the kids were old enough for lego – it can and does entertain them for hours, I had a lot of productive meetings the day my mum mailed the kids some lego, haha! As you pointed out, with a toddler the simplest activities are often the best, they don’t need much 🙂
Hope that you are having a good week 🙂
I do have to ask, does the slime keep? Or do you just make it more often? My girls love slime and I want to get this kit, but want a bit more info.
I support all of these! Water beads are such a good way to buy time! I need to get that sand container you guys have! Genius!!!!
These look so fun. sophia looks like she is having a great time.
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These are great activities for toddlers and even small aged children! Slime, water beads and kinetic sand are staples in my home. Also chalk! I’ll have to try the lava game with my son. We do obstacle course with pillows and whatever is around the house – he will love making lava!
Maureen | http://www.littlemisscasual.com