Your whole life may have been altered by rules, laws and regulations being set to reduce the spread of the Covid 19 virus.
The changes within our family homes may be unsettling, and having to spend most of our time home with kids and spouses may very well send us all round the bend.

Below we have compiled a list of ideas to help save you from insanity whilst on lockdown with toddlers!

*It’s important to maintain typical routines as far as possible and not to ration/hoard food*

1) Garden play.
2) Read a book series (whenever they will sit still).
3) Coulinders! Thread them with pipe-cleaners, rolled tissue, laces from shoes etc. and let your toddlers pull and thread too!
4) Colouring books.
5) Drawing.
6) Shape sorting.
7) Cue cards.
8) Exercise.
9) TV – controversial to some but we should give ourselves a break whilst stuck indoors. Not all TV will fry your little ones minds, but some TV may help save yours.
10) Shoes on and off – Good practice.
11) Shoving/sticking/placing things into boxes. If your toddler is old enough, change the descriptive about how to do it.
12) Taking things out of boxes or drawers (supervise).
13) Wrap toys they already own with old news papers.
14) Labelling games. Find me a..? Where is your..? What’s this? Show me a…
15) Baking and cooking.
16) Graffiti in bedrooms – totally depends on you as a parent and whether you have the paint to cover it or patience to clean it after or even trust your toddler to not then draw all over the house.
17) Puppets, make them out of whatever you can find around the house. Use them to play imagination games.
18) Shredded and ripped junk mail can be thrown in the air like ‘snow’ or ‘confetti’.
19) Spare boxes! Tried and tested over generations of course.
20) Bowling/Skittles. If you don’t own some use empty bottles, loo roll tubes or other ‘topple-able’ items for skittles.
21) Water and shaving foam. Water play can be as diverse as you like. From super long bath times to washing tea-sets in a bucket on the floor, or floating/sinking games.
22) Poke pompoms through holes in boxes.
23) Dance. Your music, their music, who cares. If we aren’t at work, we need more ways to move and the kids will love it too. Don’t forget the classics, Hokey cokey and I’m a barbie girl. Or the Wiggles.
24) Spinning in circles and following taped lines on the floor. Or just spinning in circles until you’re ‘very, very dizzy’
25) If you have pets and it’s appropriate, encourage positive interactions between them so that our little humans don’t hurt our furr babies.
26) Instruments! If you don’t own any make some. Empty butter tubs wrapped in elastic bands can make guitar ‘body’. Pots and pans with wooden spoons can make drums.
27) Jigsaw
28) Water flowers. I was surprised when my two year old first watered the plants but she really loves to do it both indoors and in the garden
29) Show them photographs
30) Random noise making! All day. I do this a lot. I’m sure enough to be sectioned, but I am now armed with laughter inducing sounds!

I am going to continue adding to this list while we all muddle through.
We would love to hear from you, if you try our activities or not, and how your family are coping with being stuck indoors.

Comment below if you have any ideas or suggestions for list additions, and to let us know how you are.

With love,
OnceUnchained