This is the first post in a series of indoor play ideas. Winter and cold, snowy, freezing rainy days are right around the corner (right outside???) and there are so many fun, education-through-play activities that can keep all ages from boredom and mass chaos (aka children) from tearing through the house…
for at least 10 minutes.
We had a few days of rain from post-Hurricane/Tropical Storm/Frankenstorm Sandy in this area. Between school cancellations and cold, misty rain, we played mostly indoors this last week. I made up a ton of ideas for our school cancellation day, and we were able to get to several of them.
So many of the play invitations that I set up for them spin off into hours of their own pretend imaginary play ideas. And then they want to play the imagination scenario again in the afternoon. And then keep the play invitation (i.e. sheets on the canopy bed) set-up for days. Weeks?
There may currently be sheets hanging on the feet end of Big Sister’s bed posts 🙂
I hung a bunch of blankets up in Big Sister/Little Guy’s shared room. This is a shot of Big Sister’s canopy bed, with sheets strung up from the posts. Hint: Use fitted sheets to get them to stay up. For weeks?
They were in love with this idea! As soon as they saw it, Big Sister called it “the Bucky ship” (from Jake and the Neverland Pirates). They immediately climbed aboard and started playing Pirates, complete with sharks below them on the carpet. They played for over and hour at this (and then most of the afternoon), pulling all kinds of toys and stuffed animals into their play story.
Imagination play boosts creativity, self-confidence (acting out characters of all kinds), social and emotional abilities, language skills, relationships. And it’s fun!
Baby Girl entertained herself (and me) with an awesome game of peekaboo in the sheets.
“Baby Shark” (Oh, the characters that she plays…and has no idea she is playing) had a blast with this box of teethers and rattle toys that I have packed up and ready to go into the attic.
(speaking of the attic…) I am FINALLY putting my tank tops and shorts up into the attic and pulling down the sweaters. The kids have had their warm clothes out for a while. This busy Sugar Aunt has been rocking the layered look for the past couple of cool months 😉
It’s the perfect time of year to get the indoor play ideas stocked up for the super cold weather months ahead!
~Colleen
1 thought on “Indoor Play Series”
I LOVE that you say that you create "play invitations" for the littles. awesome way to look at play 🙂
Comments are closed.