Ask the Village: How to Entertain a Toddler During the Winter

Welcome to Ask the Village where all of us moms come together to share our best tips, tricks, advice, and support to one another so we can all be each other’s village!

Today’s question: how to entertain a toddler during the winter

Idk if this winter has been brutal for everyone else, but our mild city has been a lot colder this year compared to previous ones. Seems like y’all are feeling the challenge of entertaining your toddler during the winter, too. So we’ve rounded up tonnnns of ideas from creative and clever moms on how to keep these toddlers entertained and happy during the winter (or a rainy day!)

Also, no guilt for extra screen time this time of year, k?

More Ask the Village posts found here!

Lots of recommendations to still get outside! Bundle up and get fresh air – it’s good for everyone. I recently purchased a bunting bag for our stroller that attaches in, and then you zip up baby in there so they’re all cozy. My son loves it!

Out of the house:

• Library – huge rec!! Most have a kids section, free kid programs/activities, etc. Some have local museum passes for cheap or free.
• Subscription to an indoor gym
• Local museums
• Children’s museums
• Indoor playgrounds
• Aquarium
• Pet store
• Utilizing free drop in programs
• Go to a mall or church to run in the big hallways
• Furniture store
• Camping/outdoor stores
• Go to a relatives house
• Toddler gym classes
• Nature centers
• Ikea
• Hardware store
• Indoor gardens
• Indoor play cafe

In the house:

• Dance parties (music recs: the countdown kids, the wiggles, sesame street, super simple songs, catie’s classroom)
• Hide and seek
• Arts and crafts
• Baking
• Teach them to pretend to feed their stuffies with a cup and spoon (encourage imaginative play!)
• Cheerio sand box (you can blend cheerios in the blender to make taste safe sand!)
• Themed baths
• Stickers (or reusable stickers!! you guys know how much we love this reusable sticker book)
• Indoor slide
• Nugget builds + forts
• Play doh
• Help with chores
• Pom pom bath
• Indoor water play with kitchen items and switch up containers each day
• Swimming in the bathtub
• Facetime with family and friends
• Obstacle course
• Sticker/water painting books (we like this one!)
• Kinetic sand
• Do regular toy/book rotations to keep toys/books fresh and interesting
• Painters tape – tape toys to the walls for them to rescue, make lines on the floor to walk on, jump over, run through, or make lanes for cars to drive
• Pikler triangle
• Water table in the bathtub/shower
• Bath crayons in the bath
• Indoor trampoline
• Shaving foam pit
• Potato print painting
• Fill sink with snow and give them thin mittens + plastic toys to play with it
• Finger painting
• Post-it’s all over the house
• Alphabet poster on the wall, then have post-it’s with each letter all over they have to match to the poster
• Fridge magnets (we like these because the magnet on the back isn’t a circle aka choking hazard)
• Car racing
• Sensory bins
• Tonies box
• Coloring books/free printable coloring sheets
• Indoor bounce house
• Recycling materials as building blocks (milk, boxes, etc.)
• Old magazines for looking, shredding, coloring, cutting
• Playing with laundry
• Cookie decorating
• Setting up stations around your house – coloring, reading, sensory bin, snacks, etc.
• Butcher paper taped onto the floor and coloring/painting
• Toddler tower to help with cooking, baking, playing in the sink
• Check fb marketplace/thrift stores for new toys to play with for cheap. Or neighborhood little libraries to swap books!
• Marker dot books
• Flash cards (this is one of our newer obsessions!)

I hope this gives you some new ideas to try!! Have any good ones not on the list? Please leave them below!