Ideas on entertaining a 2yo whilst isolating?

[Thegirlhasnoname]

When picking up DD from nursery today, they dropped the bombshell that a child had tested positive for COVID (were informed today but the positive child was last in on Wednesday) so her room would be closing for the foreseeable. The nursery manager is waiting for advice from PHE about whether isolation starts from today, when they were informed, or Wednesday, when last contact would be, but PHE weren’t too sure apparently. Will find out more on Monday.

I haven’t a clue what this will mean with either mine or DH’s work but we’ll work that out later...

But does anybody have any ideas on how to keep my (only just had her birthday last week) 2 year old entertained in our 2 up/2 down with a tiny yard area? She usually asks to go see the ducks by the canal at least once a day so anything that would help us grown ups keep sane whilst repeating “we can’t go see the ducks today” would be more than welcome!

(Well done if you read all that!)

Order halloween crafts off amazon. Get someone to drop pumpkins off to carve.

Make chocolate apples

Does she know her colours? If so, dump a load of clothes / balls / bits of coloured paper and get her to sort in to piles of the colour.

Put down a towel. Let her wash her toys in a small bowl of water.

If it’s not raining let her “paint” outside with a paint brush and some water. If you have a fence this can be hours of fun.

Good luck!

Moonsand
Music fun disco dancing
If she likes ducks perhaps get a cheap hook a duck and make nests in yard and feed them - plastic pets basically

Blow up beach ball games

Snail racing if you can find a snail or get some "delivered"

Digging anything

Make "fat balls" recipes online to attract birds or squirrels so you have something to check outside windows

Freeze things like toys in water and then give her a calpol syringe or similar to drop warm water on to melt it and retrieve the frozen items. Multiple frozen items are even more fun to unfreeze.

Bathing and drying toys. Do this in the bath to save on cleaning up.

Container of rice & utensils for pouring and filling practice.

Duplo.

-Bubbles
-Balloons
-pumpkin painting
-Making cakes/biscuit decorating
-Dancing (YouTube has some fab dance videos for toddlers)
-Puzzles
-Put food out in the yard and birds will come
-colouring
-drums using your pans and a wooden spoon
-hide and seek
-make a den

Do you have a private garden? Do loads of Autumn things. Collect leaves and flowers, make pictures. Do bark rubbings.
Make some food for the little birds.

Dunno wjy the isolation sounds hard to work out. If the child was last in on the Wed it starts from then, as that's the last time you had contact.

Make papier-mâché ducks
Cooking and chocolate making
Chalk On the ground in the yard ( maybe duck pictures?)

All else fails....TV!

I love these ideas!

Hide and seek
Races (my two year old will spend ages running back and forth if I say 3, 2, 1 go over and over)
Stickers
Water magic (we have a huge mat one that goes on the floor)
Play doh
Dance party
Bubbles (giant ones are a particular favourite)
Brio
Singing
TV - there are some great videos on YouTube for toddlers. Generally ones with high views are winners. Mine loves machines so we often watch a particular 1 hr video with 100 million views with trains and cars and diggers, I’m sure there are similar videos about any popular toddler topic
Go through all your toys and clean them out whilst toddler plays with some (kill two birds with one stone)
Stacking tins in the kitchen
Helping do somersaults (just discovered that one here, mine will spend ages doing this)
Jumping on the bed
Magnetic letters/numbers

I’d have a ‘theme’ for each day to make things a little easier to plan. E.g. day 1 birds -make bird feeders out of pine cones or loo role tubes covered in peanut butter and rolled in bird seed, sing 2 little dicky birds, make birds out of playdough and craft feathers, watch Owl Babies on YouTube if you don’t have the book etc. Day 2 could be ‘ourselves’ draw around her on a big piece of paper then paint/collage, sing heads, shoulders knees and toes, make ‘funny face pictures’ with food (pizza faces etc), follow her interests, what does she like? My three year old daughter is into rainbows, cats and Halloween at the moment. Have a look at ‘five minute mum’ on social media. Finally, good luck! I’m isolating with 3 under 3 at the moment and often have a cheeky wine at teatime to power me on through the bedtime chaos!

Lots of great ideas already...

Hide things round the house she has to find and collect in a basket/bag.
Have a teddy tea party
Lots of music and dancing
A bug hunt in the yard
Make a den together
Playdough
Make an obstacle course
Build towers with Duplo
Make a little house from a huge cardboard box and paint/decorate it

Get a cup of tea and go out in the garden.

Order a trampette

Isolation is 14 days from last contact. Only your dd has to isolate, not the rest of the family, so you can still go to work, shops, etc. Good luck

Thank you for the ideas. Some sound right up her street, others maybe not (she might behave well most days but I think I’m probably not best letting her loose with pumpkin carving tools unless we want a trip to A&E!)

Isolation doesn’t sound that hard to me either but I think the positive child still has his things in the coat area so nursery wanted advice on how to play things as to avoid a fine.

I am WFH at the moment so, whilst I know it is only DD who has to isolate, the reality is that apart from possibly escaping for a walk around the block when DH gets home from work (if I have the energy to between toddlering, being 6 month pregnant and doing my paid-for work once DD goes to bed at night) it is more or less me isolating too. I can’t very much be leaving her to her own devices with the cats supervising whilst I pop to the shop for a loaf of bread 😂

Can’t add any ideas (all mine have been said) except to say I think the themed days are brilliant and regarding the pumpkin if you did the carving but removing the pulp would be fun and safe for daughter. Oh how I wish I mine were little again such fun! Hope all goes well and try and make a little bit of time for yourself. Happy mum=happy child.

PHE have said all the children from DDs room can return to nursery on day 14. Does anybody know if this is right? Surely it would be on day 15 as they are still in the incubation period before then?

If that is the advice PHE are giving out then no wonder cases are forever on the rise!