What We're Playing: 10 Rainy Day Toddler Play Activities

It's been MONSOON weather here in North Carolina so we've had more than our fair share of indoor time to fill with play. And with a brand new baby in the house, the activities need to be simple and keep big brother busy playing and learning.

10 Rainy Day Toddler Play Activities

DIY Car and Train Table

I love car and train tables but I'm a minimalist when it comes to kid stuff. So instead of adding another piece of furniture to our home, we bought road tape {affiliate} to stick to our coffee table (and floors and kitchen table). Also available - train tape {affiliate}! Throw in some vehicles - we're loving this set from Melissa & Doug {affiliate} - and your toddler might just name you parent-of-the-year.

Lentil Sensory Bin

This was an activity born from some pantry-spelunking. A pan, some dried lentils (or rice, or beans or corn kernels), a truck and some supervision was all it took to keep our guy busy for long enough for me to prep a meal!

Reusable Stickers

Another win for Melissa and Doug - a huge reusable sticker pad {affiliate} I got on sale. We've enjoyed sticking these stickers on the pad, on our windows, on BABY SISTER and on the road tape mentioned above. Also available in non-vehicle themes ... but our boy is currently vehicle obsessed so we're rolling with it (get it?!).

Bathtub Snow

This started as an attempt to make cloud dough (baby rice cereal + coconut oil) for rainy day sensory play...but there was a messy cloud dough incident this summer and my hubby asked that I never make oily cloud dough again. Desperate times, desperate measures, I just dumped rice cereal into containers and called it snow. I put the whole activity in the bathtub to contain the mess (a quick sweep is all it took) and enjoyed watching my little one play [translation: I zoned out sitting on the bathroom floor with a newborn nursing].

(The framed snow photos were an unplanned addition but made for a nice theme-y activity. My son loves looking at magazines so every few weeks we find new photos he likes, cut them out and stick them in these super cheap plastic frames from IKEA. Just so happened we had some snow pics already framed and handy cause theme activities are not really within my creative bandwidth right now!)

Flashlight Fort

Yep - just a blanket, books and flashlights. Oh, and our play tunnel {affiliate}. Flashbacks to my own childhood!

Do-A-Dot Art

I have a little obsession with Do-A-Dot markers {affiliate}. They aren't the easiest to clean up, so consider yourself warned! But they make for some pretty awesome toddler art! I let my little guy make marks all over the page and then I turn them into little pictures of things we've been learning/talking about/he's interested in. I like to label the photos so that when he shows Daddy or other adult and shouts "oooo" while pointing to my crude artwork that it's clear that he's talking about a train!

Coloring Hands and Feet

Coloring is very short-lived and usually involved fishing chunks of wax out of my toddler's mouth. BUT, he's super fascinated with having his hands and feet (and mine...and the dog's) traced on paper. It's tickly and fun! Then he scribbles all over the paper and we start over again. And again. And again.

Indoor Water Play

Dumping, pouring, sipping, sloshing, splashing - all big fun lately for our 18 month old. The outdoor temps aren't conducive to water play so we throw (a gorgeous) beach towel (that's as old as I am) down, toss some containers onto it and just.add.water!

Yoga

I'm a certified yoga instructor and LOVE doing yoga with kids! We received the book Good Night Yoga for Christmas and it is totally rocking our indoor play. Ditch any idea you have of a calm "omming" toddler - this is silly yoga! We look at the picture, I imitate the post (usually with some silly noises and faces) and then our boy gets a turn.