10 inspiring indoor toddler activities – perfect for a rainy day!

Paiting

It’s great to get the kids outside but sometimes indoor toddler activities can be just as much fun! What if the weather is bad? You need some plans to amuse and entertain your toddler inside the house! Sometimes it’s nice to have time inside too – you can’t always be out and about!  We’ve had a think about our favourite indoor toddler activities for those days they just want to stay in!

It’s really important for toddlers to develop their fine motor skills – when they come to learning to write it’s a big advantage if they’ve spent some time doing activities that work on these skills. So we’ve thought up some indoor toddler activities that develop the hand muscles and work the coordination!

Of course play dough is a great indoor toddler activity and it also works the small muscles in the hands that are so important for holding a pencil later on!  But play dough isn’t the only thing that does this!  Have a look at our inspiring ideas for indoor toddler activities!

At PKS we make personalised products that work for kids – take a look in our shop – and we love to come up with great ideas to entertain them too!

Indoor toddler activities that will keep the kids busy all day!

Colander spaghetti

For precision motor skills practice, one of those really great indoor toddler activities is colander spaghetti. You don’t need many things for this – just a colander and a packet of spaghetti! And your toddler of course!  

Ask your little one to try and thread the spaghetti through the holes in the colander! Sounds crazily simple but it’s actually a clever way of getting your child to work on their fine motor skills! Plus it’s really fun and keeps them occupied for a while – maybe even older kids too!

We’ve found that it works best if you turn the colander upside down before threading the spaghetti through – make sure you’re all ready for it to slide through though when you lift up the colander!

This is one of those indoor toddler activities that’s really great for their precision skills and fine motor control – and it’s fun too!

Pasta shape sorter

For this you’l need two or three different shapes of pasta – or different colours if you have them!

Mix the different shapes in a bowl and encourage your toddler to separate the types of pasta into little bowls until it’s all sorted!

Indoor toddler activities like this are great for observation skills – almost like spot the difference! You might not realise it but this kind of activity helps to train young kids to notice different shapes and this is what they will need to do when they begin to recognise letters and read!

Simple tasks give useful skills!

Pasta Shapes

More brilliant indoor toddler activities!

Washing the toys!

Every toddler loves water and this is one of those indoor toddler activities that’s fun for them and also a useful task!

Give your toddler a bowl of soapy water and a dry towel to place washed items on. Set them to work washing their toys! 

If you give them a cloth to really rub the toys in the water, you’ll also be giving the little muscles in their hands a bit of a workout!

This activity also teaches toddlers the importance of regularly cleaning things – and we all want to avoid germs as much as possible!

Once finished with the washing, your child will have freshly cleaned toys to rediscover!

One of those indoor toddler activities that might get a bit wet and wild but it’ll keep them busy and they’ll feel like they are doing a job!

PKS personalised bottle bands can be washed on the bottle in soapy water so your toddler can have fun getting the bottle clean too and the bottle band will come up as good as new every time!

It’s a scoop!

Again, one of those really simple toddler activities!

Tell your toddler you need to scoop some rice from a bowl to a jar and you need them to do the job!

Just pour rice into a bowl, give them a spoon and a jar and let them get on with it! PKS personalised baby led weaning spoons or personalised toddler cutlery would be ideal to help with this task!

It’s actually quite hard for a toddler to coordinate their hands well – and it’s a skill that needs to be developed! The action of trying to get the rice from the spoon into the jar is a way of working on this skill!

Little ones love a job and so they’ll love having this task to do!

Pasta necklaces – or bracelets!

Get your little one creating their very own pasta necklace! One of those perfect indoor toddler activities that’s lots of fun and works on hand-eye coordination and motor skills too!

All you need to make a start is a length of string and some pasta – we used penne, but you can try macaroni or other shapes you might have at home.  We painted ours but you don’t need to – it depends whether you want the kids to get messy with paints!

If they are going to paint, it works best if they paint the pasta pieces using craft paint before they start threading, although this can be done afterwards.

It’s best if you make a start for your toddler by threading on the first piece of pasta and tying it to the string with a knot.  This way, the rest won’t fall off when your toddler gets threading!

Encourage your little one to thread bits of pasta on to the string – as many as they want! Once they’ve done as much as they want – or the string is covered – you can help them by tying the ends together. A bow is best for quick release!

The same can be done to make a bracelet using a shorter piece of string! Your toddler can get busy and creative making a whole set!

The finished product is a great little necklace! Along the way they’ve practised their fine motor skills and given free rein to their artistic flair!

Half way through the indoor toddler activities! You’ll need to stop for a bite of lunch – your little one will love our personalised toddler cutlery set with its silicone handles and stainless steel ends. They can have their own name marked on the handle and really feel in charge of the meal!

They’ll also need a drink – and what better to drink from than a beaker or water bottle with a personalised name band on it showing your toddler’s name? If you use any of these activities as party pieces then you could get all your toddler’s little friends a personalised bottle band each as a going home present!

Time for more? 

Spaghetti Collinder

It’s pompom time!

This is one of those really tried and tested indoor toddler activities – we did this as children!

Making pom pots is really fun and kids love it – they make really great decorations for bags too!

All you need to make a fantastic pom pom is two circles cut out of card and some wool!

The cardboard circles need to have holes in the middle, like doughnuts. Put the cardboard circles together.

Then show your toddler how to wind the wool around the cardboard circles, round and round until the circles have been covered by wool several times. The more you wind, the bigger and thicker your pom pom will be!

Once your toddler has completed the winding, cut the wool carefully around the outer edge of the cardboard discs – you’ll probably have to do this for your toddler as it can be tough work!

Now, once you have cut all the way around the outside of the discs, tie a piece of wool between the cardboard discs to hold the wool together.  Once that’s done, you can either slip your pom pom out of the cardboard discs, or you can cut away the cardboard if it’s tricky!

Fluff up the pom pom and there you are! A fabulous pom pom to play with! You can attach a piece of wool to the pom pom to hang it from bags or other things!

This should keep your toddler busy and happy for some time! It looks great if you make pom poms of different sizes and hang them together! Your toddler can even make them as little gifts for friends!

It does take a while to make a good pom pom so it might be a job to dip in and out of! This is one that you might have to help with but it produces great results!

Clothes peg fun!

One of those really great indoor toddler activities you might remember from childhood – decorating clothes pegs!

We remember using bits of material to make clothes peg people, but if you don’t have lots of material scraps around, a really easy way of doing it is just with paints!

All you need is some paints, brushes and a few wooden clothes pegs.  Then let the kids get creative and come up with their own designs! They could try simple patterns or faces – or just plain painting! Whatever appeals, these are sure to be entertaining!

The paint dries really fast on wood – you can use some clear nail varnish to make them waterproof if you want to use them on the line! Wait until the paint has dried before varnishing though!

A super quick, super fun activity to keep the kids occupied and arty!

Paint on Pasta

Grow your own rainbow!

For this – one of those super colourful indoor toddler activities – you’ll need some kitchen roll and some felt tip pens!

Tear a sheet of kitchen roll in two and persuade your toddler to colour stripes of different colours half way up each piece.

You’ll need two glasses of water.  When the colouring is done, holding the kitchen roll pieces at the top, dip the bottom of each into separate glasses of water. 

Now watch your rainbow grow!

This is also a science activity! But for toddlers it’s just colourful fun!

Finger painting!

As rainy day fun goes, this is one of those uncomplicated but satisfying indoor toddler activities that really gets the kids involved!

You might think your toddler is just making mess – but it’s productive mess! Finger painting frees kids from the constraints of trying to ‘draw’ and allows them the freedom to just make marks!

You’ll need to cover your table up with newspaper or a cover if you want to avoid lots of cleaning up! It’s also a good idea to cover up your toddler too to save on washing clothes!

Spread out white paper – or whatever colour you have – on the table. Lay out your paints – you can use finger paints or craft paints – and let your toddler put blobs of paint randomly over the paper!

Now they are ready for the fun! Let them squish the paint in their hands and make marks on the paper – they can really go wild and you’ll be amazed at the pictures they manage to create!

Once the fun is done, it should be easy to lay the pictures somewhere to dry, then scoop up the newspaper or the table cover and there shouldn’t be too much mess left behind! Remember to wash the kids’ hands before they touch everything else though!

Your little artists will be really delighted with their creations! It’s fun to frame a few of them – you can make an easy frame from card.  Then put them up in the kitchen to brighten the place up! There’s nothing more cheerful than a bit of toddler painting to illuminate a rainy day!

Finger painting is really good exercise for the little hand muscles, and making shapes is what they will need to do when they begin to write letters!

For older toddlers it’s a really good way to start forming letters – without having to grip a pencil! Fingers can make the letters!

Painting Clothes Pegs

Growing cress!

One of those indoor toddler activities that produces results! You won’t have to wait long to see the cress grow!

All you need for this activity is some cress seeds, a tub or container – why not recycle a tub you already have? You’ll also need some kitchen paper and some water.

All your toddler needs to do is to lay some sheets of kitchen paper in the tub and soak it in water.  Next, they need to sprinkle the cress seeds over the kitchen roll and place on a sunny windowsill – or at least one with plenty of light. 

Make sure your toddler remembers to add a little water each day to keep the kitchen paper moist. After a few days you should see results as the seeds begin to sprout!

Within a week or so you should have a good crop of cress!

Your toddler might even be persuaded to try a little bit with lunch if you’re lucky!

This activity is great for learning what plants need to grow and for teaching your toddler to look after a living thing! It’s always good to get close to nature even if you’re stuck inside!

If you want to give your toddler a treat after all that  creativity, have a look in our shop – we’re sure that there will be something to tempt them there!