9 Activities to Keep Your Toddler Busy at Home

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As I am writing this, our state is under a ‘Shelter in Place’ order due to the COVID19 situation. My husband and I are thankful to be still working, but from home. However, we have lost our childcare. We have been making it work, but I’d be lying if I said it has been easy. In addition, with so many days of not leaving the house and with not the greatest weather, we have started to get a bit creative in keeping our two year old busy and engaged. See below for some of the ideas we have come up with:

1.) Living Room Obstacle Course

We have set these up many times in different configurations. This is all about being creative with things you have on hand. First, we set up the obstacles, then we walk him through the course and explain each item. After that, we start him through the course. The first time or so he needs some guidance, but some days he’ll go through it over and over pretty much on his own after the first time. However, he still enjoys encouragement along the way. The following are some of the ‘obstacles’ we have created:

• Pillow climbing: throw pillows on the floor for your child to crawl over
• Slide: self explanatory
• Tunnel: a table with a blanket on top can substitute here
• Rocking horse: child counts to 10 while rocking before moving to next obstacle
• Couch crawl: child climbs onto the couch, crawls across and then climbs back down
• Shopping cart pylons: child takes a specific stuffed animal, places it in the shopping cart and navigates around ‘pylons’ (we used shoes)
• Shape sorter: child must properly put all of the shapes in the sorter before moving onto the next task
• Spoon and egg: child carries a plastic Easter egg in a ladle without dropping it
• Broomball finish: child uses a toy broom to push a ball into a soccer net (or box, etc.)

2.) Creating a Cardboard Car

If you use Pinterest, you’ve probably seen it – the picture of three kids sitting in perfectly designed cardboard cars to watch a movie, ‘Drive-in’ style. The beauty of this idea is that you don’t have to make a Pinterest-worthy creation, you just need to get your kids imagination buying into the idea that it is a car. We had downloaded an image of headlights to tape on and my husband cut out cardboard wheels, but honestly, you could do this one really low key. Get a good box, draw some wheels on the side and then let your toddler color away. We also had stickers lying around, and he enjoyed adorning his car with those as well.

Later, we let him watch a show sitting in his car. Our son also just enjoys sitting in his car and pretending to drive. We already had a toy with a steering wheel on it, so we added that for some added fun. Also, hours of fun for your cat…

3.) Planting Vegetable Seeds

We found some old vegetable seeds in the cabinet, and decided planting them would be a fun project. We did this outside on one of the nicer days. I gave my son a spoon and had him fill Dixie cups with dirt. Then I made a little hole for the seeds and he dropped them in. We labeled each cup and put them on a plastic tray we had on hand.

The seeds are now on a table near the window and are a fun daily activity. We made a little tracker sheet to keep track of the progress including things like days we watered, rotated the tray, and if we saw any seeds germinating. Because of my son’s age, I created a little stencil of a square-ish shape out of an old cereal box to aid in completing the tracker sheet. We only water on the days that need it and only a small amount. My son has been helping using a 1/2 Tbsp and a small bowl of water, but I will warn you, that sometimes results in frustration and mess. It is very exciting for him to check every day to see if any plants grew and yesterday we had our first ones.

4.) Recess Time

We have been making sure our son gets some exercise each day. This one might seem obvious. However, when two people are trying to work and chase a toddler around, sometimes you just get overwhelmed and it doesn’t happen. We’ve found that if we ensure he gets exercise, then he is more likely to play quietly on his own afterward. Getting outside to run around, go for a walk, or even pick up sticks is our favorite here. However, since the weather hasn’t been great, some of our indoor options have been:

• Marching around the house while singing and/or shaking some instruments – the ants go marching song is a fun one for this
• Dancing to some music – we’ve been loving The Wiggles and their Dorothy the Dinosaur songs, where my son waves his hands in the air, stomps, or ‘chomps’ with his hands as the song describes. Just playing some music and getting some shakes out can help too.
• The obstacle course idea mentioned above

5.) Cooking or Baking Together

If you have read my other posts, then my number of muffin posts might have given you a clue that this is one of our favorites. Because the days that my husband and I both work are so hectic, I like to spend some time baking muffins with my son the day before I go back to work. Basically we have a toddler tower and my son helps by putting muffin liners in the pan or dumping the ingredients that I’ve measured out into the bowl. He enjoys mixing too, but this typically results in more mess. My post about Pumpkin Carrot Chocolate Chip Muffins goes into this a bit further. I keep trying to tell myself that making a mess is ok. No matter how much has gotten dumped out of the bowl, the muffins have always turned out fine.

6.) Coloring with Chalk Outside

This one is pretty typical, but with the situation that we are in, I recommend coloring in a location visible to those who might be going by on a walk. Also, it is a fun time to slip in some teaching. You can casually draw shapes or letters and teach your child about them while you guys are just hanging out coloring.

7.) Go on an Indoor Adventure

We tend to spend the majority of our time in a few rooms – living room, kitchen, dining room, bedroom. With the amount of time we have spent in our home lately, I’ve noticed my son starting to go stir crazy. It is amazing how changing location for a short time can help with this. My son and I like to pick out a few books and then he gets to pick a different from usual place to go read them (i.e. spare bedroom, basement, mommy and daddy’s room). Anywhere that you don’t typically spend your time could work. If you have a smaller house, throw a blanket over a folding table and crawl under there to read them with a flashlight.

8.) Playing Games Together

This can be tricky depending upon the age, so you have to understand your own child’s current abilities. The first game we tried with our son was a matching game (we have this one: Barnyard Matching Game). Initially, we had him look for matches face up to understand the concept. Once he understood that, we started taking 8 pairs or so and flipping them over for him to find matches. He still doesn’t quite understand taking turns so well and has to be guided, but he seems to really enjoy playing.

Another idea is sorting by color. If you have colored construction paper lying around, you could lay out a sheet for each color. Then, take turns finding something in the house and placing it on the appropriate color paper. For example: tell your child to get a small toy and then help him sort it to the proper color paper.

9.) Independent Play

The following are the toys that my son enjoys spending quiet time playing alone:

• Duplo blocks (we have one very similar to the one shown below):
• ‘Cooking’ in his ‘play’ kitchen
• ‘Reading’ a pile of his board books
• Vtech Smart Wheels cars and tracks
• Wooden puzzles
• Coloring book and crayons (needs more supervision than some of the other activities)
• DJ Panda – this toy is one of our absolute favorites! See link below: