Winters around here are tough.  It’s been cold and snowy and we hate being cooped up in the house all the time.  We go stir crazy!  We have to keep busy!  Cupcake is a smart girl and she needs mental stimulation.  Here’s some ideas for indoor activities:

1. Puzzles – she is so obsessed with puzzles.  She started out with the chunky puzzles, then graduated to bigger peg puzzles, and now she has mastered “big girl” puzzles.  We love the puzzle sets!  She’ll do one, put it away, get out another, and repeat, repeat, repeat.

2. Painting – I love washable paint!!!  Her favorite is the finger paint. I don’t let her use her fingers, but she has fun nonetheless.  She always tells me she’s painting rainbows.

3.  “Cooking” beans – I’ll give her a handful of beans, a spoon, a muffin tin, a small pot, and a bowl and she has fun stirring and pouring and sorting.

4. Pipe cleaners and pom poms – This is similar to cooking beans, except throw in a colander.  This is a great sensory and fine motor exercise and it keeps her entertained.  Threading the pipe cleaners through the colander, putting the pom poms in the bowl, sorting pom poms by size or color, these are all great ways to play (p.s. she was 18  months old in the above picture – so little!!!).

5. Driving cars – Cupcake loves driving cars, but sometimes she needs direction.  That’s nothing a little tape can’t fix.  She’ll follow that track and play with her cars a lot longer than when she’s without.

6. Play Doh – Sculpting and squishing and cutting is so much fun!  You can make your own or use the store bought kind.  When we first started playing with Play Doh I just gave her some old small cookie cutters I had on hand and a fork and knife.  But now she has a great Play Doh Candy Jar set that has a roller, cookie cutters, an extruder and molds.  There’s lots of pieces to play with

7. Baking – We love to decorate cookies or mix brownies, smash avocados or make granola.  She loves to mix and pour and I love that she is learning how to cook and bake!  I hope that she loves to bake as much as I do.  But I really want to teach her to cook, but I also want her to be interested in it, so I’m starting her early!

8. Stickers – I love finding stickers on clearance.  She loves to stick them all over herself.  *fingers crossed* She’s never stuck them on kitchen cabinets or other furniture, so they’re a lot less messy than other forms of entertainment.

9. Playing dress up – As you can see in the puzzle picture above, girl loves her tutu.  She also loves to wear necklaces.  When hubby’s grandmother passed away I was able to go through her costume jewelry to pick a few things.  I chose some pearl necklaces and Cupcake has had a ball wearing them!  She loves to dress up and go to the talent show.

10. Get out of the house!  – Some of our favorite things to do indoors, but out of the house are going to the library, the mall play area, playdates at a friends house, the indoor jumpy place, the Art Institute, the museum, and shopping!

Spring will be here soon and when the weather warms up we’ll be outdoors playing at the park, going for walks at the arboretum, and digging in the dirt.  Well, unless it’s rainy, like it tends to be around here and then we’ll be back indoors playing dress up, baking cookies, playing Play Doh, and doing puzzles.

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