How I keep my toddler entertained during lockdown

It has been 7 weeks of lockdown so 7 weeks of keeping a toddler entertained while trying to work. We have done a lot of crafting and coming up with new games. I have shared a few project I’ve done for Kiki on the blog and my Instagram but thought you might like seeing them all in one place, in this post.

I’ve been taking little snap shots of what we were up to almost everyday, these are just on the go shots so not great quality and not styled. As you can see we didn’t had the greatest weather in the first few weeks of lockdown as Kiki is wearing her puddle suit and waterproof trousers in a lot of the outdoor images! But bad quality and no styling or not hopefully they will give you some ideas of what you can do with your todd now we are stuck at home.

I love having a look through our recycling bin to see if we have any craft materials, see here a planter made from a milk carton and a bread bag.

Draw little bear ears on a rectangle ten cm from the base of your carton and cut it out with a craft knife or scissors. Cut or tear your bread bag (or paper) into small pieces and glue these to the carton with PVA glue. Let the glue dry, this might take a few hours depending on how thick you brushed on the glue, in Kiki’s case extra extra thick :) Once dry use a marker pen to give your bear a face and some scrap paper to cut decorations of, like this little bow tie. and the inside of the ears.

Have you seen Marrilee Liddiard's Playful book? If not go check it out as it has some great craft ideas for kids play. Inspired by her horse puppet I made Kiki this super simple stick horse. I took two 30x20 cm canvas rectangles, if you don't have canvas fabric any sturdy fabric will do (or even thick paper) and drew on a horse head. One one of your fabric pieces draw a head facing left and on the other piece a head facing right. Kiki then coloured these in with felt tips. Cut around your horse leaving a few centimetres and stitch together with the right sides facing. Turn the right way round and put your horse on a broom or stick.

Toilet rolls are great to use as stamps when painting, cut a roll in half and use it to paint circles. Cut the other half in at roughly 2 cm deep every 1 cm, and use it to stamp flowers.

My pompom stash is coming in handy for play too, push ten of them in a whisk and let your little one pull them out. I think Kiki is slightly to big for this now as it took her seconds to retrieve them but then she was quite happy pushing them all back in for me to take out :)

Collect several empty toilet and kitchen paper rolls and tape them to the wall to create a ball drop. Slightly bigger kids can do this themselves and create their own ball drop. Pompoms fall through great but Kiki preferred to use the small felt balls I have. It kept her busy for ages, and after a while decided the ball drop had to be a spectator sport and brought her Bing friends over to watch her :)

In a bid to keep the room not looking like an exploded toy shop I got Kiki an Ikea Trovast storage unit for her toys. Unfortunately the normal sized cabinet wouldn’t fit in my fireplace (where her toys storage is) so I opted for the small Trovast unit that normally gets wall mounted but I still had to make it a bit shorter to fit. She now has 4 storage bins that I fill with different kind of toys, a space for puzzles and the top area has her bigger toys on them. The toys get changed every week, or whenever I think she is bored of them, with ‘new’ toys that are hidden away in storage. By not having all her toys out at once she plays with them a lot more and is better in independent play.

Letting your toddler help you with everyday activities is a great way to keep them entertained and for you to get things done. Kiki loves helping with baking, filling container 9she doing my coffee pads here), watering plants and even doing the dishes. She happily washed one coffee mug for ten minutes :D She also helps me empty the dishwasher (I take the sharp items out beforehand) and passes me clothes pegs when I hang the laundry. She started ‘helping’ me when I had to assemble some flat pack furniture leaving her to check and tighten all the screws she could find in the house with her toy screwdriver, too cute! As you can see in the above picture, Kiki also decided to help me paint her little chair. The paint brush was fun in the beginning but then she thought hand painted furniture is very 2020. Okey the chair doesn’t have the nicest finish but we had a lot of fun painting it.

A leftover pallet wood plank and three other scrap bits made a great balance beam. The scrap bits are roughly 5cm high and 15 cm long, screw these to the outer edges of your plank, mine is 9.5 cm wide and 90 cm long. I also put one piece under the middle of the plank as pallet wood is thin and bends through easily. It took a few weeks but Kiki can walk down the beam all by herself now without holding on. It is also a great track for her cars especially when you put one end on a flower pot making the cars race of the hill.

Another recycling craft! We turned an empty washing powder container into a car with wheels made from pouch lids. Kiki loves playing with glue so any decoupage crafts are always a hit with her. Take the labels of your container and cover in PVA glue. Place strips of tissue paper on top of the glue and finish with another layer of glue. You can layer the paper until the container is completely covered. If you don’t have tissue paper you can use thin craft style paper too. Let your container dry, this might take a few hours depending how much glue was used, and once dry there are a few steps you have to do without your toddler around. Drill 4 holes half a centimetre from the bottom, 3 cm from the edges. stick 2 craft sticks or other small dowel through your holes and cut to size so you have 2 cm of stick sticking out either side. I used four kids smoothie pouch lids as wheels (you know those Ella’s kitchen ones) but you could use lids from bottles too. Glue the wheels to the dowel with your glue gun and it’s time to decorate. Get your little one to draw on windows, doors and passengers. Kiki is a bit small for this so I drew the windows and she decorated them :)

A bag of ball pit balls have a lot more play in them then just put them in the ball pit. I tipped them on the grass so Kiki can sort them in different colours, ferry them around in her wheelbarrow and pick them out of a tub with a spoon or as you can see in the picture above a sieve from her sandpit. Anything can be a toy and a large bit of polystyrene came in handy as and outdoor sensory pit, I just filled it with water and balls. Shovelling the balls out of the polystyrene and into a tub was also a great little game.

Start by painting on plain paper, I use a sheet of white A3, Kiki is in favour of finger painting so I didn’t even got the brushes out for this one. Once the paint is dry ask your child what kind of animals they see in the paint marks and doodle those over these splodges with a black pen. Bigger kids can even do this themselves.

Inspired by Kelly Mindell of Studio DIY we made some caterpillars to hide in the garden. Cut up pieces of paper, I used an empty tissue box from the recycling bin, into strips that are roughly ten cm by 2 cm. Fold them harmonica style to resemble little bugs, hide them in the garden and let your toddler find them. I made these weeks ago and Kiki still plays with them and likes to hide them for me to find now.

One of my favourite makes from the last few weeks is the no sew play tent find the tutorial here. This really is a super simple make, all you need is a 2 meter piece of fabric (or bed sheet) and an embroidery hoop. We use this tent indoors and in the garden, I simple hang it from the washing line or from a hook we have in the ceiling to hold the cable for our light.

You can’t beat a bucket of foamy water when it comes to play, just little cups are great water toys but making a little animal wash with a washing up brush and towel is even better. Make sure the toys you use don’t have any holes in them. Don’t have any animals to wash? As you can see in the picture above washing stones from the garden is great fun too :D

The mud table is getting the most play out of everything I build Kiki this lockdown, almost everyday Kiki is busy tipping sand and water from one bucket into another. Find the tutorial here.

An old fly curtain I found in the shed provided some great fun. I hung it from the washing line and Kiki spend ages zig zagging through it. I also cut a few plastic ribbons off the curtain and tied them to a craft stick making dancing ribbons, I played some music (current fav is the Totoro soundtrack) and we had a little garden party.

Another very simple toilet roll craft, the tunnel drop. Just tape the roll to the side of a cupboard and let them try and see which items can fall through and which don’t.

Have you tried Lego prompt cards? I got mine online from Stephanie Hathaway designs. Simply print them out and let your toddler follow the instructions. Kiki isn’t quite there yet with understanding what she has to build but she’s not far off. I initially printed these cards to keep Kiki entertained on a long trip, it’s a great car/train/plane toy.

Another thing I found in the shed that turned into one of Kiki’s favourite toys are a set of fly swatters. She loves just walking around with them, it’s one of the games she wants me to play only a toddler will understand, ball in one hand and the swatter in the other and we then have to walk circles on the grass, why?? Who knows! :D

We also found out that if you dip them in a bucket of foamy water and then wave the swatter around in the air you can create ‘snow’ hours of fun!

I love my little Ikea hack shop! I used two Knagglig crates and some left over wood to build it. Find the tutorial here. Recently the shop had a little change around and instead of a supermarket it is now is a book shop. Thinking I might make it a flower shop next. Or a toy shop, craft shop, DIY shop… Possibilities are endless! Think Kiki would love it to be an ice cream shop though.

The dolls house is a project from last year that still gets a lot of play, find the original tutorial here. It had a little makeover since I first build it, I gave it a back wall as it makes playing a bit easier in the spot it is in now. It also got some new occupants, making more furniture is still on the to do list :)

For the free the animal game you stick toy animals to a flat surface, I used our Lego base plate but you could also do this on a door, the wall, the floor or a storage bin lid. Use paper tape, the one you use for painting or washi tape as it rips easily. Your toddler has to free the animals by peeling away the tape. I might have to use more tape as it only took seconds for Kiki to liberate all her toys. She did try to stick them back on though which resulted in 15 minutes of play.

Lacing toys are also great for developing small motor skills, just make sure the beads are big enough so they are not a choking hazard. The set you see Kiki play with is from Hema And when it all gets a bit to much have a spa day :D These wooden stacking pebbles are by My Soulmate place , Kiki likes to think they are for hot stone messages though looking at the above picture :)

Kiki doesn’t do tea parties she has breakfast parties or Bidgie Badgie as she calls them. Why? who knows! Haven’t got a clue where she got that word from but it alway involves a play egg in a cookie cutter ring on a plate. Make sure you have plenty of toy food, little plates and cups so your little one can set up their own cafe. I turned a stool into her cafe table, complete with a little fake plant and a little tray.

I made this sensory box six months ago, maybe longer even, as it is a great way to develop small motor skills and to keep your little one busy on rainy days. You often see these sensory boxes filled with rice but if you have a child that likes to put things in his mouth or, in my case a dog that thinks he is a hoover, rice crispies are a saver option. I simply tipped a large box of rice crispies in a storage container (38 x 28 x 18 cm) and filled it with spoons, cups and measuring jugs from my kitchen drawers. Kiki loves scooping out the rice crispies and filling little cups, the dog loves all the rice cripsies that fall on the floor :) If you use more cereal you could even hide toys in the box they have to dig out. Or in a bigger shallower box you could have diggers drive around moving the cereal from one spot to another.

I build this sandpit/play house last year and Kiki still plays with it almost every day. Have a look at the tutorial here. The wallpaper inside the house kept up really well, the sand had to be refilled though as somebody loves shovelling that out… How small does Kiki look in the original tutorial picture!! She definitely grew a lot in the last year.

How sweet is this little laptop! Made from some left over plywood it is in fact a little easel and pencil storage, find the tutorial here. The laptop is filled with pieces of paper so Kiki can start drawing whenever she feels like it.

Another recycling hack is the bird feeder Kiki and I made. A decorated juice box you can fill with bird seed or in my case leftover bits of bread. Have a look at the tutorial here.

Another pallet wood build I did was to make Kiki a mini me desk. It’s a shrunken down version of the desk you can find in my Pallet wood projects for outdoor spaces book. Find the tutorial here. The idea is that Kiki sits and plays at her desk while I try and get a little bit of work done. That hasn’t happened so far but the two tables sure look cute together :D

There you have it 38 ideas to keep your toddler busy during lockdown! I hope this might give you some ideas of what you can do now we can’t do any playdates and trips to the park. Some of these ideas might be very straightforward but I often don’t think the simple things are overlooked so I included them anyway. Besides the ideas above we also do a lot of colouring, play dough, sticker sticking, fuzzy felt, book reading, hide and seek, puzzle making, toy kitchen playing, train building, brick stacking, Lego constructing etc. and yes, sometimes the only thing left to do is switch the tv on for half an hour :)

Keep an eye out for my Instagram as I often post little toddler projects on there that don’t get turned into full on blog tutorials. Do let me know any crafts you like to do with your toddler, do you have any favourite games?