When it’s cold and wet outside, it can be easy to resort to the TV and iPad to keep your little monkeys occupied. But we all know screen time isn’t quality time, and they can’t stay glued to the box all winter.
So here’s a bumper line-up of 50 screen-free ideas for crafts, sensory play, activities and creative play to keep the cabin fever at bay. You’re welcome!
- Read a story
- Put on a magic show
- Play charades
- Draw a picture
- Build a blanket fort
- Fill a tub with water and give your plastic toys a bath
- Make up a dance routine to your favourite song
- Make loom band bracelets
- Bake cupcakes or biscuits
- Put your dress ups on and put on a play
- Have an indoor picnic
- Use masking tape to make an indoor racetrack for toy vehicles
- Play What’s the Time Mr Wolf?
- Use old socks as puppets and put on a puppet show
- Cut pictures out of magazines and make a collage
- Play a board game
- Make a shoebox diorama
- Complete a jigsaw puzzle
- Make a fairy wand
- Play with LEGO
- Decorate a pet rock
- Play Simon Says
- Play shops
- Play hide and seek
- Go through your old photo albums with the kids
- Make homemade play doh
- Go indoor bowling (using a soft ball and empty bottles as ‘pins’)
- Make a cubby under the dining table
- Make jewellery with pasta noodles and string
- Have a ‘snowball’ fight using rolled up socks as your snowballs
- Go on a treasure hunt (give kids a list or pictures of things to find)
- Have a bubble bath
- Teach your pet a new trick
- Make structures with pipe cleaners and Blu Tak
- Play Musical Statues
- Make a drum kit with pots, pans and wooden spoons
- Tell jokes
- Play Sardines
- Turn off the lights and have a disco (best with glow sticks!)
- Make paper aeroplanes
- Play knights and dragons (Mummy is the dragon!)
- Do the dishes (kids love the bubbles)
- Dress up in Mum and Dad’s clothes and impersonate them
- Act out your favourite book
- Collect leaves and make leaf crafts
- Write and illustrate a book
- Play musical chairs
- Make and decorate a cardboard box town
- Blow up some balloons and play indoor ‘tennis’
- Make a letterbox from a shoebox and write/post letters to each other
