Indoor Toddler Boy (and Girl) Activities
We have been so blessed with beautiful, sunny weather the past couple of months. My boys thrive when they are able to be outside and use their imaginations surrounded by nature. Unfortunately, our luck has changed and it has been rainy in Atlanta for the past couple weeks. The next few days calls for rain, which means this mama needs to be creative to make fun indoor activities for two rambunctious little boys.
Today, I am sharing a few of the activities that we enjoy doing inside and that allows the boys to get their energy out. Since it is warmer outside, we use our covered porch to do some of the activities–which keeps the mess outside and allows us to get fresh air!
Indoor Toddler Boy Activities:
Garbage Collecting. I haphazardly stumbled upon our new favorite activity, that the boys LOVE. Both of the boys love garbage trucks (Thursday is our favorite day as both boys scramble to the front door to watch the trash being collected). For your garbage truck loving boy (or girl), this activity is sure to be a hit!
I place post it notes around our house and the boys go around to the different “houses” aka spots where the post it notes are to collect the trash. They then place the post it notes in the back of their “garbage truck.”
We turned the garbage truck into a recycling truck, as I reuse the post it notes and place them around the house again (and again). To make it challenging, I hide some of the post it notes–think Easter egg hunt with post it notes! The boys love this game and it literally keeps them occupied for an hour. Bonus: they work together, building team work!!
Pipe Cleaners with Cheerios. “Dr. Seuss Town” as Reid calls it is a game that is super simple and mess free. I found this idea from the Lean Green Bean Blog. You place pipe cleaners in a colander and then have the boys string Cheerios on the pipe cleaners. This helps with fine motor skills and for my 4 year old he worked on his counting skills. The Lean Green Bean also suggests using cut portions of straws if you do not have Cheerios on hand.
Shaving cream on a cookie sheet. This idea was given to me by Reid’s amazing preschool teachers. I do this one outside, but it keeps the boys entertained for a good while. Simply get a cookie sheet, put a few squirts of shaving cream on it and let them go to town. This is a perfect way to get kids to work on writing their numbers or letters. Both of the boys love this one.
Stickers on poster board. I wrote about this one back in March and it is still my go to. I draw a picture on butchers paper and let the boys put stickers all over the drawing. This time, the boys pulled the stickers off of the sheets by themselves and put them on the sun drawing. The goal is to keep the stickers within the circle. You can make it a challenge by counting the number of stickers, taking turns putting on stickers or racing to put the most stickers on. This is super simple and easy to do, that I had to mention it again!
Fort building. We have so many of those pop-up forts that building a “city” is pretty simple for us. I set up our pop-ups and then place bed sheets on top to make a fort. If you don’t have the pop-up forts, simply draping sheets across furniture will do the trick. The boys love pretending they are camping or are super heroes in a big city. Their imaginations go wild when we build forts 🙂
Truck Wash. This is a tried and true activity for any truck loving child. I set up different buckets filled with soapy water, fresh water, towel and empty bucket. My boys love cleaning things and love trucks so this is a definite hit with them. We do this one on our porch as it gets a little wet. You can make it even more fun by making the trucks “dirty” with shaving cream or dirt (or if you have a 2 year old like me who likes to bring trucks to the dinner table and the trucks get covered with food–its a perfect way to clean them!).
I hope these ideas bring joy and a little sunshine on the wet and dreary days! The best part is knowing that even if you can’t go outside, we can still have so much fun inside and make lasting memories 🙂
Stay safe and healthy, friends!
