Indoor Activities for Busy Toddlers (Free Printable)

I used to think I had the busiest little boys in the world. But honestly its summer, we’re stuck mostly indoors and we can’t just get up and go like we’re used to. We are spending a majority of our time inside and all of the social distancing has been a lot on my extroverted children. Couple that with trying to work from home, be productive around the house, and remember to feed everyone AND myself and I have resorted to screen time more times than I would like to admit. But I am realizing that there are a ton of indoor activities for toddlers that don’t take a lot of effort or supplies.

Children are pretty easy to please, and with minimal effort my sons have found ways to entertain themselves for hours. I have had to learn to let go a lot and that has allowed their imaginations and creativity to shine. Here is a list that we came up with together of our favorite indoor activities.

Indoor Activities for Toddlers

Build/play in a blanket fort
Build blocks
Play hockey with a balloon and fly swatter
Do Ziploc bag finger painting
Sort toys by color
Put together puzzles
Play follow the leader
Have a dance party (we do this a few times a week on our Instagram Stories)
Paint on newspaper
Decorate paper with stickers (or for kids a little older check out these awesome paint by sticker books on Amazon)
Squeeze water with sponges
Rice sensory bins (scoop rice from one container to another)
Play with edible playdough
Stack cups and knock them over
Make sensory bottles
Make “dinosaur eggs” to melt
Build a cardboard box fort
Make slime
Play with hand puppets/make shadow puppets
Fly paper airplanes
Bowl with bottles and a tennis ball