How do your (young) children / toddlers keep busy when spending the afternoon at home?

[TibbyMoves]

When you spend an afternoon at home with your (young) kids, how do they keep themselves busy? My little ones (aged 3.5 and 2) play together beautifully but I have never managed a day without 2 outings (one in the morning and one in the afternoon). They might be very physical/outdoorsy, but wondering if I can glean pearls of wisdom from others. They also go to nursery some days - so this is curiosity as to how others do it more than anything😊
(I add that if I have only one child with me, staying in is much easier as they muck in with what I'm doing - but with both of them that is trickier)

Balloons go a long way entertainment wise in our house.

Drawing
bubbles
Magnatiles
Building blocks
Pretend play (hotels and trains are big favorites)

We do one big morning thing.
Afternoons are generally at home.

When mine were that age, I always did two outings a day. But when we were at home, they spent a lot of time building and playing with Duplo castle and pirate ship, Playmobil characters and kits, trainsets and plasticene modelling kits.

Endless waterplay in the garden, with their old baby bath set on a low IKEA table, and lots of sieves, sponges, whisks, squirty toys, jugs and boats. Or paddling pool on hot days.

Pavement chalk, painting, crayons or junk modelling - making monsters or space ships. Watching CBeebies or Shrek (about 100 times).

"Baking" with bits of pastry or bread dough I didn't need, or genuinely helping to bake with very easy brownie or muffin mixes. Helping to 'wash' carrots, potatoes and other indestructible veg before I cooked it.

They had wizard cloaks and made potions and cast spells with twigs. Built dens with sheets draped over laundry rack or backs of chairs.

They had giant inflatable beachballs they liked to kick and chuck around the garden. Easy to catch and not hard or heavy if they landed on someone.

We did teddy bear picnics sometimes, on the kitchen floor. Or outside if sunny.

At that age, we didn't. It was so much easier to be out and about. By 4.5 and 2.5 it was easier. They'd play imaginary games together, trains, do puzzles, play basic board games with help, do play doh. But it still required effort from me to keep things going smoothly.
They are now 5 and 3 and we typically do one big trip (out for six hours or so) and they play either side of that.

I have a park opposite my house, so we basically never stay entirely at home. But sometimes we do a long afternoon in the garden - watering plants, water table, putting the washing on the line.

2&4 and they generally just play together.
Occasionally if it’s a rainy day and we haven’t gotten out in the morning I will set up more of an activity, playdoh, colouring, magnatiles building, but in generally they spent the afternoons at home playing together or running about in the garden.
For me having them both together is always easier because they have eachother to keep themselves entertained.

mine are 3 and 4.5 now, but they did lots of rolling a ball to each other, chasing each other up and down, pushing each other in the pram (the dolls pram 😂), packing to go 'on holiday', cooking in their mud kitchen, round and round on their balance bikes.

They still do a lot of this! but there's a lot dr
dressing up games now too and just being generally bonkers and romping around.

When mine were that little they spent a lot of time pottering in the garden - paddling pool, watering cans, sandpit, chalks, paintbrushes and a bucket of water to 'paint' the fences, sweeping, making mud pies, blowing bubbles! Kept them busy for hours and we'd often have a picnic lunch/tea too. Invite friends over and you can chat and catch up while the kids play ☺️

Omg why do they all love packing?! Any time I’m busy cleaning downstairs they are wrecking their rooms decanting every toy or clothing item they can find into any vessel in a ‘packing to go…’ game.

We spend most of our time in the garden. We have a big garden so they can ride their bikes around and we have climbing equipment and stuff. We're currently in the house building some built in wardrobes so they're hammering nails into some scrap wood. Or they saw up boxes. Our kids aren't sit and draw kids. They have kid tools. They have chalk but they use their hammers to break it up. Specific toys or activities tend to entertain them for 3 seconds. We made playdoh once. DS smashed all the colours together straight away then was done with it.

Different strokes for different folks. If we tried to get them to sit and draw or make shapes out of playdoh we'd all feel like failures. You find the things that speak to your child.

Me and my husband have bought wooden climbing set, indoor playground. When we are really exhausted our toddlers can entertain themselves, waste their energy

A lot of time in the garden at this time of year, I struggle more in the winter. We set up obstacle courses or sports day type things, or just bring their toys outside and set up paw patrol land or whatever there. Try not to care about the mess and let them get whatever toys they want out. They’ve recently got better at ‘helping’ me with jobs, so they both love sorting laundry with me or changing beds. Also, we watch a lot of tv. Some people may not agree with this but if we’ve been out all morning and if they’re turning it off regularly to go and play / do other things then I don’t mind them having a fair amount of the afternoon. Youngest is dropping his nap and eldest wakes up super early so they both need some down time on the sofa. Mine are 6 and 3 now and I’m slowly finding time at home more bearable…

I think that's just how it is at that age. In about a year, you will probably find you can drop to one outing a day.

I have a theory that kids who go to nursery are particularly like this - it's like they get used to a certain level of stimulation and focus from the nursery staff and then find home more constraining.