Tired being stuck indoors with an active toddler? Is your child bored with his new holiday toys already? A few weeks ago we posted a blog about toy rotation to help solve that dilemma, but here are some fun, simple ideas to keep your youngster entertained on a rainy, snowy and/or cold day.

1. Toilet Paper/Paper Towel Roll Bowling: Save those paper towel and toilet paper rolls and set them up as bowling pins and let your child have a ball (literally) knocking them down. He will be working on coordination, balance and fine motor skills. And, if you take the time to color or paint the rolls, you can work on color matching at the same time!
2. Macaroni Stringing: Use large rigatoni noodles and an old shoestring and let your toddler work on fine motor skills by stringing the macaroni onto a necklace. You can find recipes online for using rubbing alcohol/hand sanitizer and food coloring to dye the pastas different colors, and again this allows you to work on color matching/sorting as well as creating a fun craft.
3. Large Cardboard Box: Save large boxes from appliances and let your child’s creativity rule. They can color on the box, sit in the box, fill the box and push and pull it. And if the box is large enough you can even cut windows & doors into it to make an indoor playhouse!
4. Whipped Cream/Pudding Painting: Don’t have finger paints? No problem. Use whipped cream or pudding on your child’s highchair tray and let him finger paint for a great sensory experience with no worries if fingers go into the mouth!
5. Cotton Ball Races: Place a few cotton balls onto the coffee table and have a race blowing them to the other end. You can even put a piece of masking take down as a finish line. This is a fun game that works on important facial muscle/oral motor development and strengthening needed for speech and language and chewing/eating.
6. Laundry Basket Rides: Let your child sit in the laundry basket as you slide him around the floor, or let him fill the laundry basket with toys and push it around the house.
7. Poker Chip/Cotton Ball Drop: Use poker chips, bingo chips or cotton balls and cut a slot/hole into a box or jar lid and encourage your child to drop things in and then dump them out. Great way to refine neat pincer grasp and work on fine motor skills. Be sure to monitor your child closely, as some tiny items can be choking hazards if your child is still a “mouther” of toys.

I bet you can come up with 10 more things that would be fun for your child using simple household items. Remember, even your pots and pans, tongs, spatulas, etc are great fun for play on a cold winter’s day!

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