When you have a toddler and a small one, it's hard to get outside when it's cold. Here's what we've been up to this winter:
- Reading
- colouring
- finger painting (a working parent loves a finger painting stuffed into their lunch box)
- "cooking" with kitchen utensils in a bubble bath
- going to the local free playgroup
- folding laundry... believe it or not, toddlers love to help with the folding and babies are amused amongst the pile.
- building forts with blankets
- baking... my toddler LOVES to stir (and taste of course).
- Making "birdie food" by ripping up a bowl of bread scraps (props to Mimi for this one)
- inviting over a playmate. (What?! add more kids? But two toddlers are good at amusing themselves without you)
- Letting the toddler feed the dog some treats. They both get exercise. ;)
- a little TV is sometimes necessary for mom's sanity.
- cleaning up that trashed bedroom can be fun. I get the two-year-old to see how many toys she can throw back into the toybox from a predetermined distance.
- Water play. Fill something up and let them pour/stir/taste... it's only water, how much damage could they possible do? Ok... so maybe keep it away from the plasma...
- A small toy on a string. If you have a cat and a kid wanting to run... you have at least 20 minutes of hilarity all lined up.
- Movie night. Popcorn and a cartoon. (although I recommend against peter pan... holy cow I don't remember the movie being that violent!)
Anyone have suggestions?
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Great list! We do a lot of cooking.. Some things that last for a while and keep them occupied for a while is we bake sugar cookies. I let them roll them out and cut them out with cookie cutters.. then I mix up some frosting and let them "paint" their cookies. We actually just got done doing some.. Also I make some of the salt dough and make ornaments and let them cut them out and paint them.
ReplyDeleteWe also do a lot of paper projects. I cut the stuff out and then let the boys glue it together and colour it or you could paint it.
We do finger paints (with baby food) in the bathtub
We make a party. We make the streamers and place mats and party hats and wrap up some small gifts, then bake cupcakes and party.. for no reason at all. The boys have a blast with it.
I've never thought about letting Ella paint frosting on our cookies. Great idea! And I totally forgot about playdoh. We made that this winter too.
ReplyDeleteGreat list! It's not too cold to go out here, but when the baby is born it will be hard to go out for the first month (without the disapproving glares of everyone around me) so I'm going to keep this handy. The only one we do now is baking.
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