Indoor Activities for Kiddos

I do not sit still well. Its a personality flaw that I have fought, eventually accepted an ultimately embraced. My children seem to have inherited this personality trait from me, it has become incredibly apparent while we’re staying at home and “social distancing.”

We used to start our day with a trip to the gym/Maria’s school and errands. Now that those are not options I have a 3-4 hour window of time to fill. I’ve tried screens…I am not a screen hater…but they just don’t work for my kids. They won’t sit through a whole movie or they want 1000 snacks while they try.

Pinterest and other Instagram moms have been my hero for filling this time with fun/educational/challenging/ joy-filled activities. I thought I’d compile a list to help some other mama’s out there too. Here are some of the activities/products that are working for us.

1. Threading Pom Poms: Yarn, Plastic Needles, and Pom Poms to the rescue. Your little one can make bracelets, necklaces, crowns, garland, dog collars, and general decor with this. It helps them work on that pincher grasp. You can also teach patterns by having them mimic patterns you create as an example or make up their own.
2. Pom Poms: According to Pinterest there are about 100,000 things that can be done with these things. You can glue them to paper, sort them into ice cube trays (willy nilly or in patterns,) sort them into cups, thread them, throw them at each other…all manner of things. Check out this list for more ideas.
3. Ice Cube Tray Activities: These are equally as versatile as the pom poms. They can be used to make ice cubes, sort pom poms into, make kool aid popsicles with, scoop and organize beans into, and the list goes on. Here is a great Pinterest board with ideas for them. I linked the ones I have. I bought them when I was making baby food and they’re great for that too.
4. Multi Surface Chalk: this stuff is awesome, you can write on windows, paper, wood and white boards with it. We’ve been stuck inside during the majority of this “Social Distancing” and these have been wonderful. I let Maria practice making shapes, writing her name, writing letters, or just drawing pictures on the windows. She feels like she’s breaking a rule, I feel like she’s learning. Win Win.
5. Play Money: Apparently it is a Motensorri activity for kids to “sort money” basically you put it in a pile and then have them sort it back out into containers or a masking tape grid. Here’s the activity link. We’re trying it tomorrow. I’ll let y’all know how it goes.
6. Food Coloring Activities: Another item that gets a lot of bang for its buck. Honestly you can just put out cups of water and let them put food coloring in the water. They learn diffusion, color mixing, and pincher grasp. You can also have them drop in oil and see what happens. They learn about hydrophilic/hydrophoic relationships (if you have big kids go on and explain it, if not just observing it is a good science activity.) You could also have kiddos make their own paper. I used this post to help me figure out how to do that. Once we made the paper, I ironed it and then cut it into envelope sized pieces. Have your kiddo write letters to their friends on their hand-made stationary.
7. Scotch Tape Activity: Alright I will confess, I made an entire day out of taping my kids things to various stationary objects. I got way too much entertainment out of watching them try to remove their toys from the window, their bowl from the high chair tray, etc. I started out following this blog post, then I ended up taping everything everywhere. What can I say? I was slap happy. Another fun activity, if you have good weather, is to make a chalk mural with a masking tape template. Check it out here.
8. Last but not least, this awesome Melissa and Doug activity book has been a huge hit. Check it out, its inexpensive, entertaining, and reusable.

Another idea I ran across today was ABCMouse.com. Maria played with it for about 25 minutes straight and ACTUALLY SAT STILL while learning! Y’all, this is monumental. She loved getting to use my computer (and quickly mastered the track pad!) and earning prizes as she completed tasks. Highly recommend it-you get the first month free. Check it out here.

Alright y’all, that’s my list for now. I’ll update as I come up with more ideas. I must end by saying one thing: I do find that these activities go a million times smoother if I set them up in “centers” at night while Maria is sleeping. It gives her something to look forward to when she wakes up and it makes it easier to get to the good parts of the activities. Have fun and stay safe 🙂