The snow is finally melting but there is still enough on the ground to make life difficult. We have been stuck inside for months. Does anyone have any fun activities for little kids? I have a 3 year old and an 18 month old. We have colored, play dohed, painted, put shaving cream on the kitchen table, played hide and seek, peek a boo...and..well, maybe that's it...anyway, I was just wanting some ideas on things that have been fun for little ones. Even the smallest thing can be fun so please send me any suggestions! Thanks!
My kids love to build forts in the house. Some old sheets or blankets work great. I let them take some flashligts and some snacks in.
Have fun and crawl in, too!!
- Put a plastic container like the kind that fits under your bed on the kitchen floor with pebbles or water or rice in it; let them measure with kitchen items.
- Sit them at a mirror with glass markers and draw on their expressions; like glasses, mustache, lipstick, etc.
- Put coloring pages inside large plastic ziploc bags, give them erasable markers, they can do dot-to-dot, mazes, etc. You just erase and switch the picture
- matching card games at the kitchen table or on the floor
- make a scrapbook, educational, touchy type, things they cut out of magazines, use old pictures that you don't want, stickers, etc
- play leap frog where you have pillows all over the floor, they jump to each one as if it is a lily pad and you don't want them to fall in the water
- what about chocolate dipped fruit?
- homemade ice cream using a ziploc bag, homemade pudding using a ziploc bag, homemade scrambled eggs using.......
- finger paint they can eat; this involves syrup
- if making gooey food in a ziplock like pudding, they can draw on the bag with their fingers just making indentations
- popcorn balls
- balloons - toss back and forth; don't let them hit the floor
- get helium balloons and let the kids pretend they are kites, running around and flying them
- while they are in the bathtub or sitting at the table; put shaving cream or cool whip on a balloon which they drew a face on; then give them tongue depressors (popsickle sticks) to show their daddy how they can shave the balloon face just like daddy.
- get some recycled bubble wrap and dance on it
- go to newspaper office and ask for leftover roll of paper, roll it out on floor, trace the childrens bodies and have them fill in the drawing; this can also be used for gift wrap later
- Assemble a sock ball, a bean bag or a yarn ball and an empty trash can or tub. Place the can or tub close to the child.
Show the child how to toss the ball or bean bag into the trash can or tub. Encourage the child to use one hand, but accept either under- or overhand tosses. The child may even prefer to use both hands. The object is to aim for the target with the ball or bean bag.
When the child has gained confidence in tossing the ball a short distance, the trash can or tub can be moved farther away from the child.
Hi L.,
I love to build a fort in our living room. We take all the chairs and couch and cushions and pillows and blankets and turn it into a enormous tent. then we crawl around inside and get flashlights and read stories. My boys 4 & 22 months love fort day!!!
Wow, you've received a lot of good ideas from people. Some of the things that I did with my little ones, and now my grandchildren, is to put a small pup tent up in the basement and go "camping". I even arranged a "campfire" just by putting small pieces of firewood into a teepee shape, but of course not lighting it. We sang campfire songs and had a great time. We even sleep in the sleeping bags that night. If you don't have room for the small tent (it's only big enough for two adults anyway), you can just put the sleeping bags on the floor and couches, etc. We also go on a picnic, I have a picnic basket that I pack with our food and a blanket, then we lay the blanket out on the family room floor, and we have our picnic. We even put in nature sounds CD's for these activities, so we hear the birds chirping, or the rain and thunder. You can get all different kinds of CD's with nature sounds. I've pushed the furniture back against the walls and made a dance floor, then we dance or do gymnastics. Or we do karaoke singing, along to children's music CD's. You can find them at Walmart with songs like "row, row, row your boat", twinkle twinkle little star". You can also make pine cone bird feeders by putting peanut butter on pine cones, then dipping the pine cone in bird seed. The seed sticks to the peanut butter and the birds and squirrels love it! You can also use stale bread too. The animals will eat the bread also. You can pre-cut out construction paper shapes and then you can all glue shapes together, then color them. Or make greeting cards and send them on to the local nursing home. Remember glueing macaroni and beans to paper plates?
Now I'm getting the urge to do another craft project with my grandkids! How fun!
I get all kinds of ideas from the school I work at. Plus the internet and Mamasource should give you a ton of ideas! You could ask the library for any books they have with ideas too.
Happy Crafting!
I am a working mom, who works for our local school district, I have 5 children, ages 28 to 12, the 12 year-old is my only child left at home. I also have 5 grandchildren. Life is Good!
I love games! I sell the simplyfun games that entertains my kids and it is so fun!
Cook with them.
Those are a few ideas.
good luck.
M.
You can make gifts for out of state relatives and mail them. I used to love going to the post office and sending and recieving mail. Baking cookie? Something easy like potatoe chip cookies so the kids just have to mash, dump and stir. Its almost over. Hang in there!
Check out this website for free craft templates/coloring pages and much more, I am using them right now for our 2 1/2 yr old and she loves the time every day! http://www.dltk-kids.com/
Our local rec center has a toodler FREE play gym time.
Also,I sometimes take my daycare children to the MALL play area when it is too cold to go out and I feel they need to run,jump and climb more than can be done in my home playroom.
We are feeling the same... I have a 5 yr , 2 yr and 9 month old. My kids (and me) go stir crazy if we don't get out of the house at least once or twice a week. We try to make one trip to the library a week. Our local library has a story our for toddlers and preschoolers Mon-Thurs and they LOVE to go. We make a big event out of it. They both take their own back-packs and after story hour is over I let them fill them up w/ books to check out. It makes for a fun afternoon.
Also, taking them to McDonalds for a small icecream cone and to play at the play land works for a nice little outing.
Other than that, I do a scheduled pre-school time w/ my little ones. If you google the word pre-school activities, there are tons of sights w/ fun activities and coloring pages.
Good luck!
I am feeling all of those same things and my kids are going completely stir crazy! Anyway, the other day I let them dress up in whatever they wanted (mommy and daddy clothes included) and put on a show for me. They loved it!
www.Familyfun.com or www.Marthastewart.com has some fun ideas for kids. Hope that helps!
I know how you feel i have a 15 month old daughter and winter is really hard. But we try to pass the time with different things. She loves bubbles. I blow them and she chases them. I also take her to a pet store near by. She can play in there for a good hour just looking at the fish, puppies and kittens. they always let use hold the animals which she loves. It gets us out of the house and it's free. She also loves to play in the laundry basket. It's silly but i push her around in it and she laughs. She will then sit in it and have a snack while she watches a little tv. I hope that helps a little.
One thing my girls love is to blow bubbles in the sink. We got the idea from Parenting magazine. Mix up your own bubble solution using 1/4 cup water, 1 Tblspn of dish soap (the kind you use in the sink...not the type you use in the dishwasher), and 1 tblspn corn syrup. Then we use cookie cutters to blow the bubbles into the sink. Make sure your sink is wet so they will stick. I just pull two chairs up so they can reach. It amuses them for a while and helps me clean the sink, too! A few other things we have done: indoor hopscotch (I make it with blue painter's tape on the family room floor), bowling (use plastic cups or stuffed animals as pins and a soft ball to roll across the floor...the key is to have them roll instead of throw, so this needs supervision), we are also growing some tomato plants in plastic cups inside until it will be warm enough to plant them in our garden. Just a few ideas...hope they help!
I am feeling the same, so is my 3 year old daughter! Have you tried baking with your boys? Painting? How about salt dough that you can bake and then paint? Ummm... making collages, do you get magazines or things like that. My daughter is into different things, we will sometimes look up the things she likes (dinosaurs, care bears) on the internet, print off the pictures and glue them to 3X5 cards. This is her card collection. She also likes cleaning. I will give her a cleaning wipe (babywipe or lysol wipe) and let her at it. She does the walls. I live on a cul de sac and the roads are cleared, so we have taken her bike out and she has ridden in the road. computer games could help with your 3 year old. PBS.Org or Nickelodeon.com. Maybe they can help sort their toys and put some away that they have not played with in a while. Cleaning all the winter germs off toys can take up a day or two, just keep it fun. How about "swimming" in the bathtub. bring in dirt and let them play in it. make macaronni necklaces. You can alway look up crafty item on the web, many of the sites are free and wonderful. Good luck, that is about all I can come up with. Do you live in Rigby? Ever gone to the T.V museum? Do you have anyone you can have play dates with?
If you get any terrific ideas, feel free to share them!
M.
