Top 10 Indoor Activities for Toddlers

These are my top 10 indoor activities that I’ve done with my kids as they were toddlers. Since its winter time, and in Iowa, its freezing cold, I gotta have a handful of these up my sleeve.

Indoor activities are great to have on hand for any age this time of year. But toddlers seem to especially get antsy and need some extra hands on attention.

Every one of these activities are easy to do, easy to set up, and take materials that you should already have on hand [they’re all pretty common items], and if you don’t, I’m listing a bunch of other options you could do instead too!

Do you have favorite indoor activities for toddlers?

My top 10 indoor activities for toddlers:

1. Get out the cardboard boxes and create! Let the imaginations flow. A box can be anything, a train, ramps for cars, an airplane, a house.
2. Tape up the doorway and through some newspapers [or cotton balls!] at it to see if you can stick them. Great gross motor practice for toddlers!
3. Shaving cream is a wonderful sensory activity that toddlers love. Squirt some on a pan and just let them have fun. Add food coloring if you like. You might want to put them in an old shirt and maybe a towel down too. It does get messy [You can keep messy play clean too, I’ve got 10 ways!]
4. Bowl inside! Grab one of the kids’ balls. Set up a few items for pins. Lots of things will work for these, pop bottles, paper towel tube, toilet paper works too!
5. Create a necklace, toddler style! Use a piece of string [a shoestring works well because of the hard end] and something to thread on it. Big beads would be great. But other items such as straws or large pasta noodles work too. This would be a great fine motor activity.
6. Dig a newspaper out of the recycling bin and have a ball throwing them! Add a target to the mix and practice counting too. All great gross motor practice.
7. Here’s a sensory activity that’s easy and clean! Squirt some hair gel [lotion would work too] into a baggy and zip it up! Add some odds and ends craft items to the mix too for added fun.
8. Tape a line on the floor in different ways [zig zag, curvy or straight] and have a toddler walk along it, trying to balance their best. Can they do it forward, how about walking backwards? Another fantastic gross motor activity that can be done indoors.
9. Have your toddler poke pom poms through an opening in a small bottle, or cut a small hole in a container. Pom poms and other small items can be used for fine motor practice, but always be careful with small kids and watch them closely.
10. A play dough alternative [although its great, its fun to throw in something else sometimes] is cloud dough. The texture is awesome and the kids will love to explore it.

If you’re itching for more toddler activities, there’s 50 of them to be inspired by, and a lot of them can be done indoors too!

Get The Toddler’s Busy Book too for every day activities.

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