As winter approaches, spending time outdoors becomes less and less of an option. The season comes with a new challenge for working toddler moms – finding things to do with our kids on the off days.
I usually don’t get much time during the work-week to play with my son. It’s a back to back rush from work to daycare pickup to dinner to bed. So when the weekends roll around, we try to make the most of them as a family.
In the warmer months, my son’s weekends are full of planned outdoor activities. Aquariums, museums, parks, gardens – he has quite the social calendar. But when winter comes around… not so much. Between the cold weather and early sunsets, we tend to spend most of our time indoors. Of course, I still want to be able to spend quality time together even if we’re stuck inside.
Indoor Activities Can Be Simple
Who says you have the be the queen of crafts and creativity to keep your toddler occupied at home? More often than not, toddlers are just as happy with the simple things.
As a working mom who needs to balance quality family time with work and household demands, I look for activities that don’t require too much advance planning or post-activity clean up. After all, most of the chores have to be done on the off days with the work-week already being so hectic. I’m okay with a messy activity here and there, but I try to minimize the mess as much as possible.
Indoor activities are also a chance to connect, learn, and bond. Letting my son run loose outdoors is great, but it tends to be more focused on the gross motor skills – running, jumping, throwing and kicking. There are many simple, easy indoor activities you can do that will not only be engaging and fun, but can help promote their fine motor and communication skills too.
12 Easy Indoor Activities To Do With Toddlers When It’s Too Cold To Be Outside
1. Winter crafts
Crafts aren’t just for crafty people. There are many simple craft ideas out there that are fun, incredibly easy to do, and help develop fine motor and concentration skills. One idea that I love for winter is snowman decorating. You’ll need to have a snowman template first – you can find tons of free printouts online, buy them, or draw your own. This cotton ball snowman craft and torn paper snowman craft are a hit with my 2 year old.
Christmas tree decorating is also a perfect idea for this time of year. This christmas tree sticker craft is a really fun and easy idea for toddlers. My son isn’t too keen on staying on the lines and would rather put stickers everywhere randomly, but that’s okay too. Of course, you can use other things besides stickers – pom poms, cotton balls, different shapes of construction paper – get creative.
2. Indoor bowling
Indoor bowling is another idea for easy at-home fun. You can purchase a bowling set online with a soft ball or use empty or slightly filled water bottles from the recycling bin. This game gets your toddler moving and is also an opportunity to work on throwing, math, and hand-eye coordination.
3. Indoor basketball
Similar to bowling, indoor basketball is an easy option to get the little ones active and stimulate conversation about numbers and counting. It also helps develop hand-eye coordination and motor skills. You can either purchase a mini-basketball hoop or make your own version using soft balls and a big box or container.
4. Bake cookies
Can toddlers help with baking? Actually, yes, they can. They can help with stirring pre-measured ingredients together, using cookie cutters on rolled out dough, transferring spoonfuls of dough onto a baking sheet or muffin tin, and of course, decorating. You can follow any recipe you like or do store bought mixes. We like this sugar cookie recipe and also this healthier peanut butter thumbprint cookie recipe. Baking might be a little messier than the other options on this list, but you can make it simple with store-bought mixes. Plus, fresh-baked cookies are worth it.
5. Winter-themed scavenger hunt
This one is pretty simple but so much fun for toddlers who enjoy looking for and finding hidden things. Hide some winter-themed items around the house (stuff like Christmas ornaments, pine cones, or pictures of typical winter things like snowmen or snowflakes – whatever draws their interest), and help your toddler go around trying to find them. Take it up a notch by doing something with the items after you find them. For example, after we do an ornament scavenger hunt, we can use those ornaments to decorate the Christmas tree.
6. Elf on the shelf
If you celebrate Christmas, you might already know about this beloved Christmas tradition. If not, it’s basically a very adorable Christmas-themed scavenger hunt that involves placing an elf (a so-called “scout elf”) in different positions every night in December up until Christmas Eve for your kids to find the next morning. The story goes that the elf travels back and forth to the North Pole to report back to Santa if the children have been good or bad. He returns and hides before the kids wake up, but not before causing some mischief first. There’s only one rule: kids aren’t allowed to touch the elf or it’ll lose its magic. Placing the elf can be as simple or as extravagant as you make it. Check out this post for a more in depth guide to Elf on the Shelf, and also check out these hassle-free ideas on how to hide this little mischief-maker.
7. Have a dance party
Is there anything more adorable than a dancing toddler? Toddlers love to dance, and we love to see it. An at-home dance party can look as simple as turning on a YouTube toddler favorites playlist and dancing it up together, or it can be more extravagant and include fun props like shakers or play instruments – or even costumes. When it comes to kids, the sillier the better! My toddler loves to dance to songs that have an interactive element or commands to follow along with like “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes” or freeze dancing.
8. Pretend restaurant
Pretend play might just seem like a cute little thing that toddlers do, but it actually has a significant role in childhood development. One of our favorite versions of this type of play is pretend restaurant. My son loves propping up all his stuffed animals and serving them ‘meals at the table.’ This is a great opportunity to talk about different types of foods, colors of fruits and vegetables, and also work on social skills.
9. No-mess sensory bin
If the first word that pops into your head when you think of a sensory bin is MESS, I get it. I was resistant to trying them too for that exact reason. But hear me out – there are plenty of no-mess sensory bins out there that don’t involve tracking down grains of rice that have somehow rolled under the furniture. The thing about sensory bins is that they have such great benefits for toddlers, so it’s worth a try as long as they’re reasonably easy to clean up. They can also occupy your toddler for a long time and can spark lots curiosity and exploration of many different textures. Try this cotton ball sensory bin and this tissue paper one. For more ideas, check out this post.
10. Mystery box
We love a good mystery box. It’s so simple to make and helps your toddler explore their sense of touch in a safe way. It’s basically a closed non-see-through container with an opening in it for tiny hands to reach into. You can make this literally a million different ways; use a cardboard box, an empty wipes container, a shoebox… the whole point is that your toddler is using only their sense of touch to feel an object. Maybe they might even try to guess what they are feeling. Inside the box, you can put things with a variety of things with different textures and shapes like fruits, toys, squishy balls, blocks etc.
11. Animal rescue
This animal rescue game is popular among toddler parents, and for good reason – it’s simple, easy to set up, non-messy, and can keep a toddler engaged for a good while (as far as toddler attention spans go). All you need is tape and some toy animals. Tape the animals down into a surface and have your toddler “rescue” them. That’s it, that’s the game. It’s great for helping them work on their fine motor skills too.
12. Extreme Box Decorating
I absolutely love this extreme box decorating idea. Not only does it make use of the mountain of Amazon boxes piled up in the corner of our home, it is also very creative and requires virtually no setup or extra space. You just need a big empty cardboard box and stickers/ markers/ construction paper/ crayons. Make it themed (I love a good theme – fruits, shapes, flowers, animals, colors etc.), or just wing it. That’s one less box to break down for you and an engaging activity for your toddler. Everybody wins.
When winter rolls around, you might be spending a lot more indoor time with your toddler. Think of it as an opportunity to connect and spend quality time with them, while also working on developing essential motor and communication skills. You don’t have to go all out or do any excessive planning for these kinds of activities – there are many low-hassle and non-time consuming options available. Often, toddlers are quite satisfied with the simple things anyway. Make the most of it – before you know it, the season will be over and we’ll be back to chasing them outside again.
