Easy Indoor Activities for Toddlers: Oh Goodie Goodies

Let’s not kid ourselves… Toddlers are busy. And being stuck at home with your 1-3 year old during self-isolation/ lockdown/ social distancing is no joke. That’s why we’ve put together this list of ideas for indoor activities for toddlers.

Guaranteed to captivate your little one for a nice chunk of time, these ideas are super-easy to do today, and most use things you already have at home.

Let them build!

Whether you have building blocks or an impressive collection of (lidless) Tupperware containers, toddlers adore building, bashing down, and building again. Not only does this keep them entertained for ages, it also teaches them all about cause and effect and balance.

Pic by Hello Wonderful

Want to play together? Set out the blocks, containers, paper cups, etc, up in a low-traffic area of your home, face your child, and start stacking. Use words like “behind” and “under” to help build their vocabulary and to introduce them to spatial concepts.

WOODEN BLOCKS & BUILDING PLAY SETS FOR TODDLERS

1 Alpha Block Cargo Truck ($19.99) 24 months+ 2 Heroic Knights Castle Blocks ($24.99) 12 months+ 3 100-Piece Montessori Wooden Block Set ($32.99) 2 years+ 4 Barnyard Animal Puzzle Blocks LOW STOCK ($15.99) 2 years+ 5 Building Blocks & Wagon ($24.99) 18 months+.

Make them a drop box

If you have a cardboard box at hand – even an old shoebox – try out this drive-and-drop idea by Days With Grey. Use painter’s tape or a marker to draw roads on the box. Then, with a box cutter, cut out a rectangular slot that they can drop their toys into over and over again.

Pic by Days With Grey

Busy Toddler suggests using an empty lidded container to create a size sorting box. Use a razor blade to cut three differently sized slots in the lid, then gather items for your toddler to drop in, like markers, crayons and playing cards. This sizing and dropping activity is great for boosting hand-eye coordination and sorting skills.

Pic by Busy Toddler

We can’t recommend Hands On As We Grow enough as a fantastic resource for many no-prep toddler activities. If you’re looking for ideas, this is the site to visit. We loved this wooden block drop (which is also a fun way to get them to clean up their toys), that gets kids to use kitchen tongs to pick up their building blocks and drop them into containers. If you have blocks in different colors, you can challenge them to sort and drop by color. Really great activity for hand strength and motor skills!

Pic by Hands On As We Grow

For much younger toddlers, A Crafty Living also has so many fantastic ideas to keep children entertained. Liv, mom to Rory (whose chubby arms are pictured below), is an early childhood educator and stay at home mom who creates magic with cardboard, muffin trays, stickers, painter’s tape, and more. Here, she uses a cardboard box to create a simple, effective ball drop – yes, that simple!

Pic by A Crafty Living

Make a ribbon-pull

Hands On As We Grow‘s ribbon-pull is a quiet-time activity for babies and younger toddlers. All you need is an empty baby bottle and some soft, silky ribbons. Cut the ribbons into different lengths and show your child how to push the ribbons into the bottle, then pull them out again. Great for building fine motor skills.

Pic by Hands On As We Grow

Make no-cook play dough together

Save yourself some $$$ and entertain the littles with this no-cook play dough by Inspire My Play. It takes only 5 minutes to mix up flour, salt, cream of tartar, vegetable or coconut oil, boiling water and food coloring. Include the kids in making it, then leave them to play with soft dough that’ll last for months.

Pic by Inspire My Play

Put up a sticker line poster

Dot stickers are cheap, colorful and can be used in a million creative ways. Like this sticker line poster by Busy Toddler, which gets toddlers and preschoolers to focus and use their fine motor skills. Draw different types of lines onto butcher paper and tape it to the wall, floor or a table. Task your child with using dot stickers to follow the lines from one end to another. Another great hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills activity.