Please share you out of the ordinary, non-screen time activities for a 4.5& 2 y/o?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Getting in the tub with cars and trucks and having a car wash. Give them sponges. ( I have boys but I'm sure any toy would do)

Puppet show. I do the first one by ducking below the side of a bed, holding up a stuffed animal and talking in a funny voice. They "get" what to do after that and run with it

Horse rides (I'm the horse) and bicycle rides (on your back, feet up attached to their feet) and "narrate" all the places we're going

Hardwood floor sliding. Put socks on and run and see who can slide the farthest

Simon says. You be Simon (in our house the kids don't get how to be Simon yet)

Cars aren't just for boys.

[Anonymous]

Get a giant bag of baking soda and bottle of vinegar. Dump the soda into a baking dish for each of them, and let them dump colored vinegar in to make a fun bubbly mess. Medicine droppers are great for this.

Fill up a big bin with beans and construction vehicles.

Paint sugar cookies (use real paint brushes and confectionaires sugar plus water or milk and food coloring for the paints).

Rain boots and slickers and go on a worm hunt.

Glow stick dance party in a dark room (just make sure the 2 year old doesn't bite through the glow sticks... i speak from experience here)

Obstacle courses. Ours usually involve jumping off the couch into a big pile of pillows, driving ride-on toys across the room, jumping from pillow to pillow, and crawling through our play tunnel.

[Anonymous]

Gather up all the odd socks, roll each one into a ball, and... sock fight! (aka snowball fight)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Making playdough. Also making crazy swirl crayons by melting in muffin tins.

Indoor ball pit (there was a small one for cheap on amazon recently, or you can find a baby pool and DIY)

Magic Sand (either bought or DIY)

And this sounds crazy...but...give it a shot...deep cleaning. Mine love doing the tasks like scrubbing baseboards. Especially if they're 'competing'.

I second cleaning: my 3 year old loves wearing goggles and spraying vinager and using a scrub brush. He also loved helping me replace the toilet seats.

Tent in the living room.

Not terribly out of the ordinary, but we play a version of 20 questions where he guesses which animal I'm thinking of. Also, using a "magic wand" to turn each other into animals (i.e, pretending to be a cow)

Throwing dice and then running around the room that number of times.

Ha. My three-year-old is also obsessed with cleaning. I keep a spray bottle of half-vinegar/half-water and let her go nuts in the shower.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Naked sticker dance party

Seriously, the funniest and best idea ever!

[Anonymous]

In a similar thread years ago someone suggested freezing toys for an excavation activity. I took an oblong tupperware, put about 2 inches of water and some small plastic toys and froze overnight. Then DS used "tools" and warm water in a dropper to dig out the toys.

[Anonymous]

Op here...Thanks!! These are great - I really appreciate it. Please keep them coming!!