With unseasonably frigid temperatures and/or snow/sleet/ice blanketing much of the country, we wanted to share a list of easy-to-implement, boredom-buster activities that will help to brighten your day and keep your little ones HAPPY!
- Use cardboard boxes and build a house, and if large boxes are not on hand, gather smaller boxes and work with your child to transform them into robots, dollhouses, or boats. Gather art items such as washable paints, markers, crayons, and whatever other creative materials you and your family can use to help transform ordinary boxes into extraordinary creations!
- Invite your little ones to build a fort!!! When it comes to fort-construction, children are so creative and innovative! To ‘sneak-in’ a little engineering, problem-solving practice, encourage your fort-builders to come up with a plan (i.e., decide how many people will be in the fort, which will help them decide the location and size of the fort, and so on).
- Build an obstacle course on the floor with pillows and couch cushions. My children love to jump from pillow to pillow, pretending the ground is cold, cold snow (or, bubbling hot lava!)!
- Spread a blanket on the floor and invite your family to enjoy an indoor picnic!
- If you have dry-erase markers available, share them with your little ones and invite them to draw on windows!
- Fill buckets and bowls with dried pasta, popcorn kernels, or dried beans, and let them dig with measuring cups and spoons.
- Make a path on the floor with construction paper and play a life-sized board game! My children loved to do this with Candyland, but you can also do Connect-Four, Tic-Tac-Toe, or any other number of games!
- Use ‘mate-less’ socks and create sock puppets!
- Have an indoor snowball fight (using crumpled paper)!
- Invite your family to ice-skate, indoors! If you have wood floors, tiles, or linoleum, all you need are socks! IF you only have carpet, put wax paper over their socks with rubber bands and let them slide away!
- Tear art with aluminum foil pieces makes for shiny fun! Share several pieces of foil (which your children will tear into whatever size/shape they want!), glue, and paper (to which they can affix the torn foil pieces) stand back, and watch your children shine!
- Children get a kick out of this unique art opportunity! Place a large sheet of sturdy paper (old sheet, shower curtain, or cardboard) onto a large, clear workspace, and pour some washable paint on the paper. Next up, invite your children to drive toy cars through the paint—non-stop fun!
- Once the artwork is complete, provide your artists with soapy suds, water, and a drying space so they can clean their toy cars before hitting the road!
- They are not just for building! Legos (or any type of building brick) are fun to dip and stamp, dip and smear, or just plain paint with! Again, set out a tub of soapy water and a drying space so your children can scrub the paint away!
- Any safe and child-appropriate kitchen utensil make-for exciting painting purposes! Pastry brushes, cookie cutters, plastic silverware, rolling pins, whatever you can find or borrow! Painting is always more fun when you introduce undiscovered treasures (and, to keep the treasures treasurable, use washable paint, such as finger paint!).
- Write conversation topics or starter sentences on craft sticks, store the sticks in a cup, and when you want to start a conversation with your little ones, pull out a conversation starter stick, one at a time! There is only one rule! You must answer too!!
- What is the yuckiest thing you ever smelled?
- When was the last time you were silly? What did you do that was funny?
- What is your favorite thing that _________ does for or with you?
- Where do you like to go in the car?
- What type of super-hero would you want to be?
- What is your favorite weather? Why do you like that weather?
- When did you last say, “uh-oh”? What happened?
- What is the messiest part of the house?
- What is the coolest thing you have ever seen?
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Stay WARM and safe!
