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Creating Family

13 Indoor Activites for an Active Toddler

February 6, 2018 / 43 Comments

Winter is a tough time to be a toddler. You can’t go to the park. It’s too cold to play outside for long. Being stuck indoors can be boring and toddlers tend to feel cooped up. So how do you entertain an active toddler indoors?

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My son is very active. He loves to run, jump, and climb on everything. During the summer we spent hours walking around and going to parks to play. Then, winter came. A winter full of below freezing temperatures and lots of snow. This is pure misery for a busy toddler. I had to find creative ways to entertain him indoors since even the best toys will only keep his attention for so long.

Since I love arts and crafts, this was a logical place to start. With an active toddler, arts and crafts may only last 10 minutes at a time, but we often revisit it throughout the day. It’s a great way to get him to slow down for a moment and focus on something.

drawing, toddler, crayons

We started with simple coloring. Just some paper and crayons. He loves when I give him different colored crayons and label each color as he scribbles on the paper. I quickly learned to tape the paper down since otherwise it would move all over the table and he would get frustrated.

For more about my adventures with toddler coloring, check out my blog post here.

adventures, toddler, coloring

 

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Then, we started to expand our artistic mediums by introducing finger painting. He loved this! We put some plastic down, then the paper, and I put little dots of paint on the paper, letting him go wild smearing it all around. It’s a great sensory activity as well since the paint gets all over his hands and he loves to squeeze it between his fingers. Of course, it is really messy, but as long as you use washable paint that doesn’t matter. Just clean up afterward!

As fine motor skills develop, stickers become a fun activity. I peel each sticker and he puts them on the paper, or on his face, or on my face. It helps tune those fine motor skills further as they have to use their pincher grip to hold and place the stickers. This is also a fun way to learn different shapes, animal, and colors since you can get stickers in any theme and label each as you peel them.

Another messy, but super fun activity is glitter! I’ll take some regular clear dry glue and make a pattern on the paper. Then, I’ll give my son a shaker and glitter and let him go nuts! He loves to shake out the glitter and see it stick to the places where I put the glue. Another fun variation is to use glitter glue. This is a little less messy since you don’t use loose glitter. I’ll use this in a similar way to finger painting. Just put a few dots on the paper and let him smear it all around.

The last craft I’ll mention here is cotton ball art. This is another fun way to incorporate different textures into your crafting, making it a great sensory activity. You can either draw in a figure, like a penguin and then have your toddler glue cotton balls on as the penguin’s white belly, or just give them some glue covered cotton balls and let them loose! I prefer to just let my son do what he wants. I’ll put a little glue, either clear or glitter, on a cotton ball and let my son squeeze it, pull it apart, feel the sticky and fluffy parts, and then eventually glue it down onto the paper.

All of these arts and crafts activities can be done separately on different pieces of paper or you can combine them and do them in stages throughout the day on the same paper. It is so much fun to watch my son’s different skills and creativity develop.

Along similar lines is playing with play dough. This is pretty self-explanatory. Again, I don’t like to put any pressure to do it the “right” way. I see parents all the time that like to show their kids to roll it out, cut out shapes, and make different figures. There is nothing wrong with demonstrating this, but I don’t expect my son to actually DO it. He is much happier when I give him all the supplies and just let him figure it out on his own. His favorite thing to do with it is just to squeeze it in his fist and watch it come out from between his fingers!

For the times when sitting still is simply not a possibility, our favorite activity is obstacle courses. I’ll take all the cushions off the couch, maybe find some boxes, and make a fun course for him to crawl over and under. It’s great if I can include his tunnel so he can crawl through it as part of the obstacle course, but I don’t always do this. Just the cushions are often enough. He’ll climb all over them, laughing the whole time! Plus, it tends to wear him out which is great!

A variation of the obstacle course is the fort! What little kid doesn’t like forts?!? My son loves to help by stacking pillows and figuring out how to get a blanket to drape across them so he can climb under it.

Another fun game we play that is great at getting his energy out is something I call “bullfighter”. For this game, I take a blanket and fold it up so that I can easily wave it like a matador does in a bullfight. Then I wave it around, putting it over his head, and let him run into it. This is another game that gets big giggles every time we play!

Baking cookies is a fun way to teach them a little about the kitchen and cooking while having fun. When we do this, I let him pour the ingredients into the bowl and stir. For added fun and learning, add some food coloring and watch their faces as you label the colors and they mix it into the dough!

While you are in the kitchen, take out the Tupperware and let them sort and stack them. Take them all out of the cabinet and them put them back in. We’ll be entertained for quite a while doing this! My son also loves taking the lids off and putting them back on.

The other kitchen cabinet that is full of fun is the pots and pans cabinet. Here we have “band practice”. I take out a few different sizes of my cheaper pots and pans and a big wooden spoon. Then, let him bang on the pots and pans with the spoon! To get some energy out I’ll separate the pots and pans so he has to get up and run from pot to pot to bang on them. He’s spent at least an hour or more doing this, running from one to another and listening to the sounds it makes when he hits all the different sizes.


If you need to be more productive, let your toddler surprise you with how helpful they can be! While you sweep, give them a broom and let them sweep a section of the room. Or if you are cleaning counters, give them a rag and let them wipe up the floor. My son loves to help me clean the house! Being helpful is so rewarding for him!

13 Indoor Activities for an Active Toddler

1. Coloring with crayons
2. Finger painting
3. Play with stickers
4. Glitter fun!
5. Cotton ball art
6. Play with play dough
7. Obstacle courses
8. Build a fort
9. Play “bullfighter” with a blanket
10. Bake some cookies
11. Tupperware fun
12. Have band practice in the kitchen
13. Let them help around the house

 

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Lucy At Home UK gentle parenting blogger