5 Boredom Busters for Toddlers

As a stay-at-home mom, I often try to balance structured and unstructured playtime with my two year old. As he gets older, he has found ways that he enjoys playing independently, but as the day wears on he tends to need a bit of help from mom.  After lunch and during that long stretch of time until dinner, I often find that he needs support and creative inspiration to keep from allowing the boredom and crankiness to set in.  Here are a few ways that we stay active, creative, and learning indoors, when we can't head outside to play!

Blocks {Game}

Whether you have Duplo, wooden, or cardboard - blocks are a wonderful item to keep around the house for imaginative play.  Lately, we've been building our share of houses, walls, and bridges with the Mega Blocks that my son got for Christmas.  Another use that we have found for them is creating a fun game that gets my son moving and building at the same time!

For this game, all that I did was set a bell on top of the table and toss blocks around the living room. (If you don't have a bell, you could use anything that makes noise - a tambourine, a buzzer, or even an empty oatmeal container to bang on!)  Then, I showed my son how to find a block, set in on the table, and ring the bell.  He then went in search of another block, placed it on top of the other, and rang the bell again.  This repeated until all of the blocks were gone and he had built a little creation by adding one block at a time. After a game or two, he decided to make up his own rules, but enjoyed playing just as much! 

Salt Trays

We've had a lot of snow recently at our house and my son just loves waiting for the plow truck to visit our street.  One day, after he had watched the road being cleared and salted, he asked me if he could scoop up snow inside.  

This was such an easy activity to put together.  All you need is a tray, a jar of salt, and few trucks to plow with! (It's easy to sweep up afterwards, too.) If you don't have enough salt, rice would do just fine!  Or if your child isn't into trucks, here's another simple idea for playing with salt from Creative Playhouse.

Creative Tables

Experimenting with art supplies is another great way to break up your day.  Search the house for any type of materials that you child can create with.  Let them have free reign and see what develops!

  
For this activity, I set out torn construction paper pieces, paint, glitter, glue, paintbrushes, and a side that I cut out of a cereal box.  My son has used many of the materials before in one way or another (except for torn paper), so this time I just let him experiment and create his own masterpiece.  

Color Sorting

Grady is still working on learning his colors, but he loves to "match" any type of items he can find.  We've used these foam shapes in several activities this year including painting with shapes and learning how to sweep, so we pulled them out again for some color sorting.  

We grabbed a few bowls from his play kitchen (Tupperware would be perfect, too) along with the blocks and began sorting. I placed one of each color in a separate bowl and asked my son to sort the rest!  This can be done with any object lying around the house - pom poms, cereal, toy cars, etc.  The possibilities are endless and it helps improve color recognition during play!

Balls {Toddler Created Activity}

On the days when we're stuck inside because of the cold weather, I always try to find an activity that will allow us to burn off some energy.  One day I decided to bring a few different sized balls and a laundry basket upstairs to do just that!

After rolling them back and forth and chasing them around the living room, my son made up a game of his own!  We would roll them as far away from ourselves as we could, then he would run around collecting them, and set them in a group on the floor. He would then hide them under the laundry basket until Mom would find them and roll them away, starting the "game" all over again.  A super-simple activity that is easy enough for a 2 year old to understand! Why not try setting out a few items with your bouncy balls and allowing your child to come up with a silly game on their own? 

   
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