Toddler Activities - Your tried and tested ideas please!!!

[Chunkamatic]

OK so the school holidays round here means that all the toddler activities/groups have stopped as well.

WE're one week in and I am already sick of going to the park (which is too busy really anyway!) so am looking for your best ideas for activites to try at home.

We have the usual painting/play dough/train table/trampoline things going on, but I would love some new ideas that I can get involved in with DS1 (2.6) as I feel like we're in a bit of a rut at the moment.

TIA!

building huts with blankets and sofa
shallow tray of water with spoon and small bowls (supervised of course)
wiggles/hi 5 dance party
picnic on rug in lounge or out in back yard
obstacle course with pillows to jump on, chairs to crawl under etc
baking
laundry basket, basket ball
skittles and bowling ball
um will come back if I remember more
oh um hide and seek big hit with ds at this age

shaving foam on a flat surface(not as messy as it sounds and they love it)
treasure hunt
painting all the fences with big paint brushes and water (add some glitter for sparkly water)
pavement chalk art gallery

washing up bowl full of water and a kids tea set - DD loves doing the washing up then makes everyone tea!

the painting on the fence with water thing is brilliant, i read about it on here and it truly does work!

sandpit/ digging in the garden

sticking - you can get little shapes/googly eyes etc for them to stick on paper for not very much from places like Wilkinsons, and cut up bits of tissue paper and pictures from magazines.

do you know any other mums from the toddler groups? Playdates are the best thing, then they get to play with someone else's toys!

Squeezy I have decided I'm off to Wilkinsons for that very reason tomorrow!! I just cant be bothered to leave the house today but can't handle a bored toddler.

I have a couple of friends with similar age DS's who we spend time with in the week - I agree that other people's houses are always more exciting!

Will try some of the suggestions, thanks guys! Keep em coming!

junk modelling - we've made rockets from cardboard tubes and 'launched' them in the garden

dressing up - take photos with a digital camera - they love seeing the results

Do you have any local woods where you can do a bear hunt or hunt Gruffalo or something?

Did lots of stamping yesterday

Hand and foot prints with water on garden path

'Painting' with water on blackboard

Puzzles and games

Making biscuits, pizza dough

Waterfight if it's hot?

You need a nice balance of energetic & cerebral so they're good & tired by bedtime!

Cornflour and water. I love playing with this too!

Or a big bowl of rice and lots of spoons, containers etc.

Stickers.

DS and I are making a number collage. We're going through old newspapers and magazines cutting out numbers and sticking them to a bit big of paper. DS really enjoys it and it's helping him to learn numbers.

If you have any Surestart children's centres near you, check out if they are still doing toddler groups, as our local ones still have things going on over the summer.

I also kill an hour or so sometimes by taking DS to our local ELC and letting him play with the toys (the staff don't seem to mind). There's a pet shop next door so we go and look at the fish afterwards.

Taking all the cushions off the sofas and putting them in a big pile on the floor to jump about on usually keeps them amused for a while.

A ride on the bus as a treat.

• go to the library and read books
• go for walks somewhere else, a different park (sooo exciting)
• picknick in park
• swimming in local leisure centre
• check out the city farms

Making dens has always been my favourite both inside and outside. Add scarves and ribbons to the materials so they can 'embelish' their dens.
For wet days:
Treasure baskets (like for babies only with appropriate contents.
Listening baskets (bells, shakers etc)
Interest collections (shiny things, keys, inside of clocks, watches etc)
Things that go in other things (bags, purses, boxes, tins etc.)

Try www.earlyyearsplanning.co.uk for other ideas.

Icing rich tea biscuits and then decorating with a few sprinkles and then eating.

On and chucking in garden (full rain gear if needed) to run off the sugar.