entertaining a 1 year old in lock down

[sienna19]

hi there,

I would love to hear from someone any advise on entertaining an almost 1 year old during lockdown?

I'm currently working from home and my wife is running out of ideas to keep our daughter entertained. she cant quite walk yet which is limiting our out door activities, which is a shame as we have a large garden.

Any ideas welcome.

Cheers

Bubbles
Books
Hide and seek
Treasure basket (Google it)
Assault course made of cushions etc for crawling over
Play bath
Water play (fill a bowl in the garden if its warm)
Make some shakers (different bottles etc with different stuff in)
Pans/bowls with pasta/rice and some 'tools' to play with

Have fun playing with shaving foam in the bath tub!
Make dens and tunnels and tents with sheets and furniture
Blow bubbles for her to pop
At that age, my dc loved hand printing
Make a drum kit with upturned pots and pans and wooden spoons!
Roll balls down ramps!
Once I had shown my DS how to rip paper, there was no stopping him. He loved the sound it made and I'd give him an old magazine and he'd happily tear it to shreds.
Make a washing line indoors and hang up anything you can find - pieces of paper, hats, gloves, empty cereal boxes!
Stack and unstack paper cups
Bouncing a balloon around and on her head! This used to send my DS into fits of laughter.
Cook up a big saucepan of porridge and let it go cold. Add some food colouring and it turns into a fantastic squelchy messy play activity, especially with little toys hidden! I do the same with custard and with mashed potato using a packet of instant smash! Polenta works well too, as does cooked couscous or cooked spaghetti.

Some great ideas here! I’m struggling with my 17 month old too, he’s very active but too little to do activities like colouring or crafts that need concentration for more than 2 minutes, then he just wants to run around again.

Do you have, or can you get, an outdoor water/sand play thing? They can play outside then without needing to walk.

Also my son loves to roll around on the grass, I roll and he copies me. If you have a ball, she can probably push it around while crawling even if she can’t walk yet.

Watching with interest I could really use ideas!