Curing Cabin Fever: Indoor activities For Toddlers

Ah, winter. It’s cold, dreary, and gray outside – there’s no snow to play in.

What’s a toddler to do to keep from losing his mind (Or, more likely, to keep their parents from losing theirs)?

I’m not one of those moms with a box full of busy bags or an endless supply of pipe cleaners on hand waiting for craft time. I guess those things come with experience, and in my defense, I’ve only had this mom job for less than three years.

So these indoor activities for toddlers use nothing more than what you probably already have in your house, and though some of them are best if played with a few toys added to the mix, I’m going to assume your child isn’t completely toyless, and that that isn’t a problem.

So behold, some of Garrett’s (read: boy) favorite playtime activities:

• Beans on a cookie sheet. Add a few construction toys, and this keeps him busy for hours. I’m sure this is partly due to one of his favorite books, Easy Street. “Use big rocks (or beans), chop chop chop, fill a dump truck to the top.”
• Rice. Pretty much the same as the beans, except that rice is so much easier to load with a backhoe. Little girls might prefer measuring cups and spoons over trucks and tractors. Or if you’re adventurous, use…
• Dirt. Before the whole bean idea, I caught Garrett digging in my seedlings with a toy backhoe, so I brought in a cup full of dirt from the compost pile (the only diet that wasn’t frozen so hard that I couldn’t get into it). This is a great idea if you don’t mind a bit of a mess!
• Playdough. This is kind of a two-for because kids love to help make it, and then they get to play with it. We made our own baking soda Playdough and love it!
• Pasta and string. Who doesn’t love to make pasta necklaces, right? Depending on your child’s motor skills, you can vary the size of the pasta, from macaroni to manicotti.
• Tong, toys, and a bowl (or sink or bathtub) of water. Why is pulling things out of the water with a tong so fun? I don’t know, but I’m not a toddler, and toddlers seem to love it!
• Paper airplanes. He can’t make them himself, but if I make one for him, he’ll spend an hour or more flying and throwing it around!
• Bubbles. You probably think of blowing bubbles as a summertime outdoor thing. Not so! Garrett loves bubbles, and at his age, he does best in the house where I can supervise him. It’s loads of fun!

Bonus activity: Dominos! My little brother left a box of dominos here last week, and Garrett loves them! He sits at the table, plays with them like building blocks, sorts them by color, and tries to set up chains to knock over. That’s what he’s doing right now as I type.

Those are our top eight activities. Some things I want to try are moon sand, and if we had stairs in our home, I would totally do the cardboard box stair-slide thing – and then slide down it myself.