Indoor Obstacle Course: Set up pillows, blankets, and cushions around the living room to create a mini obstacle course. It’s perfect for burning off energy, and they love crawling, climbing, and rolling over the soft surfaces.

Sensory Bins: Fill a bin with rice, pasta, or even water beads, and hide little toys inside. It keeps them entertained for ages, and you can keep switching out the items inside.

Water Play: If you’re up for a bit of mess, set up a big plastic tub with a few cups and spoons for a mini water play session. It keeps them happy and feels like outdoor fun!

Dance Party: Put on some music and have a little dance-off. It’s fun, and it gets all those wiggles out!

Story Forts: Build a fort with blankets and pillows, and cozy up inside with books or a little flashlight.

On cold and wet days we did a lot of indoor obstacle courses, although I have to say we still would also go outside once a day for a walk. I also did a lot of drawing / colouring with the kids and a lot of recycle craft as well. Jog saw puzzles were always a big hit too.

Buy a little tent or a cubby house and you can set it up outdoors

Rug up! Jackets, beanies, gumboots, and off to the park, beach or bush!

On very nasty weather days baking is a fantastic activity or small world play!

One great activity I did when my kids were small was to make a doll house. When you have lots of nappies and they come in boxes you can make great doll houses. Sticky tape around 4 boxes together, shape a roof out of a box. Cut off one side of the boxes so they can play (also make doll furniture out of more boxes, cream containers, anything around the house really). Make doors and windows. If you want to get fancy you can even paint the house! My kids LOVED it.

When we lived in Norway we learnt to rug up and dress for the weather and the kids could always be outside. Do the same for yourself, get warm, waterproof clothing and shoes and you can still head out. Others below have given some great indoor ideas. My kids always loved indoor fortes.

Make a camp with blankets over the table. Indoor picnics are fun too. Play doh has always been a popular wet play activity in our house too.

Planned Activities:

Make roll cage for toddlers push car.
Get weak balloons or lawn.
Teach math in front of heater. (Talk about thermodynamics early).
Get gum and stick it under the table, ask child why the gum was put there, remove the gum, say good work and give extra treats for any more gum the child finds and removes.
Make the child, put gum under the table.
Buy lots of expensive gift cards, make a collage, tell the child how much money we lost, ask if the child has any opinions on the art.
Pierce a deoderant can, swear at the deoderant can, thats all.
Buy lots of acrylic paint markers, make sure the child does not eat the paint, make sure the child is bad at painting only the page, send child to preschool, before they go and paint. Make sure they are lightly covered in paint (at least their hands). Call the child an artist.
Try to explain what a parabola is while throwing the ball outside. You might need to do art to explain this.
Give the child a list of names, tell the child sha will be santa oneday.
Teach the child the word ‘oneday’.
Get sandpaper, a dust mask, and safety glasses that are hard to remove. Fix some good furniture.
Make a cake with no added sugar, make a cake with too much added sugar. Give the sugary cake to the child before running, give the less sugary cake (probably carrot) after dinner.

Grow Carrots, explain production systems and fertilisers, explain water consumption, be the employee, tell the boss what to do. See if sha complains.

First Post.

One of my kids’ favourite activities was ‘box day’ – when the weather wasn’t nice to be outside, we would make things with boxes. So basically, every time you get something delivered, keep the box, you can also use cereal boxes, egg cartons, any cardboard items you think might be interesting. You can also use patty pans for decorating – they make great pretend flowers. Basically, let your child’s imagination run wild, help them create something. Maybe they can make a robot, or a rocket, a cubby house (if you have a really big box), a car (patty pans for headlights, etc and straps over the shoulders so they can wear it and run around), I even made a crocodile once!
Another idea you might try is raising some seeds inside on a window ledge. Your child can learn about how plants grow and learn to give it a little bit of water, etc.
Playdough is also another favourite, and you can even try making your own.

Books worked for my little one. Maybe some indoor water play (in the bathroom)?

musical instruments with pots and pans. Stacking tuppaware. home made play dough. play keepy up with a balloon. make a cubby with chairs and sheets. fill a box or tub with different sized toys and child picks them out with tongs.

Splashing in puddles was a favourite of mind. Don’t let the cold stop you from getting out and about, just rug up. Hot bath, hot choc and pjs when you get home and the cold is all forgotten

Look at OT or childcare activities

Most things I do have been mentioned, but one other thing we did was set up a little baby bath on the table with a little bit of bubbles and got towels etc ready and spent pretty much all day giving every one of my toddlers toys a bath. Baby, Dino’s, ponies, all animals etc washable dolls etc lol.
Simple but effective lol.

Build a cubby or if you have a teepee put that up and fill with textured cushions and blankets. Put some of their favourite toys inside and get down on the ground and play with them.

Indoor play centres saved us!

- Indoor obstacle course (climb over or under a chair, jump on a cushion, can use masking or painters tape to make lines to walk between)
– make a cubbyhouse
– make a ramp & roll cars/balls etc down it
– magnetic tile or block towers to knock down
– get some glowsticks & have a dance party
– keepy uppy with a balloon
– layer up if it’s not raining (gumboots, umbrella, raincoat) and go for a puddle jump walk

Play dough, simple craft ideas like sticking, painting, cooking, drawing, puzzles, reading books together. there are so many cool ideas!!

I live in Tassie so have no choice but to get out in the cold and wet if I want to get out at all. Just make sure it’s a full on, physical outing then chillax once home

We did a lot of drawing, painting, recycle craft, puzzles, building a hut using furniture and bed sheets, obstacle courses, insect observation box, reading books, visiting the library, visiting indoor play grounds