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Keeping a Toddler Busy
We’ve been having so much snow, sleet and other bad weather on my side of the pond these past few weeks, that our outdoor time is limited to an occasional trip to the park. As a result, I’m slowly running out of ideas for how to keep my active and always chatty (read: the kiddo won’t shut it for more than 2 minutes) almost 4-year-old busy.
Sure, I could teach him all I know, but what do I do the next day? Claying, drawing, painting, playing Wii games, making binoculars out of toilet roll tubes, reading a gazillion books, teaching him the alphabet, singing, dancing, making tents out of old sheets in his bed room, I’ve done it all and then some. He’s not in school yet (it’ll be a long three months!) so I’ve got all day long to keep him entertained. Though he’s fairly good at entertaining himself, I can tell he’s getting bored.
To those of you with children (or nieces, nephews, neighbor kids, heck even dogs count), what do you do with your kid(s) as soon as the weather gets bad? How do you keep a child happy and entertained while holding on to your own sanity? If I hear one more “Mom, why does… (fill in the dots), I’m gonna rip out my hair by the handful and quite possibly eat it.
Save me.
You probably have the ingredients for Playdough:
• 1 cup flour
• 2 Tbsp cream of tartar
• ½ cup salt
• 1 to 2 Tbsp cooking oil
• 1 cup water
• food coloring
Mix flour, cream of tartar, and salt in a pan. Mix desired coloring with water, add with oil to dry mixture. Cook over medium heat until thick. Mix in coloring later if preferred.
I made many many batches of this stuff when my kids were young — just put it in a plastic bag when not using and it lasts for a long time.
I find it a lot of fun to use a fitted bed sheet and play parachute games. Lift it up and hide under neath or ‘popcorn’ with balls in the middle are my sons favorites!! Living in Canada I hear your pain regarding entertaining a toddler through the winter!!
Cute picture! I don’t have much advise. At that age my girls were content with crafts they could sit for hours drawing and creating.
@Wendy:
The rice trick is amazing! Thanks for the tip.
Dumped a huge bag of raw rice in to the portable toy drawer under his bed, and he’s been playing in it with his Bob the Builder cars for quite some time now loving every minute of it :)
Hey – how about dried beans instead of rice? That’s what we used – still do actually. They’re easy to clean up. My kids LOVE to scoop, push, harvest and combine the beans with their John Deere toys. We use dark red kidney beans but the bigger the better!
And my kiddos could spend an entire day making forts out of pillows, chairs and blankets, too! Don’t forget to crawl in there with a flashlight and have a nice lunch with him!