Lots of fun playing inside

When the cold weather hits, I never really noticed how much time I spend inside… until I had a toddler.  Cooper LOVES being outside.  This past summer, I would leave our back door open and just let him play in the backyard by himself since it is fenced off.  Well we can’t really do that during the winter.  So I’ve tried to be creative with how we spend our time inside.  I know he gets bored, because I do.  I’m trying to think like an Early Childhood teacher who is stuck inside her classroom during Hurricane season with no recess in the near future.  Ok, maybe it’s not that bad.  But still, we need some fun things to do. 

 

Lots and lots of reading.  Not that this is new, but as you can see, we have brought “friends” in to the mix.  He has recently been wanting to read with or to his friends.  I’m hoping when Levi comes, Cooper will doing a lot of reading to his brother.

 

Nana and Poppa Tom got Coop a tent and tunnel for Christmas.  I brought them out the other day, and seriously he played non-stop in it for an hour.  TOTALLY WORTH IT!  I even brought out one of my tunnels from teaching and attached it to the opening of the tent.  So he had two tunnels to play in.  When he started calming down, I put his cup and snack in the tent and let him have a picnic.  He sat in his tent till he ate his whole snack and drank his juice.  I love the picture to the right.  I’m thinking I’m going to be getting a lot more of those looks in the coming years.  :)

 

Cooper has never been a fan of sleeping with anything in his crib.  Ever since he was 6 months old, we have tried a variety of items to help him like to be in his crib.  Just recently he has started asking for toys to join him.  He usually throws them out the second he gets in his crib, but this particular night, he was so exhausted that when Matt laid him down, the toys stayed right there.  At one point, Matt when in to check on him and saw all the toys on his face.  Well he freaked out because Cooper never does this.  So Matt moved the toys off his face and Cooper started laughing.  :)  Matt quickly replaced the toys, and Cooper fell right to sleep.  Before Matt went to bed, he removed the toys from Cooper’s face.  Crazy kid!

We bought him an easel for Christmas, and to be honest, I was very nervous to use it.  But so far, he has done excellent.  I stay by his side the whole time he uses it, but he hasn’t tried to write on anything even then.  He does get distracted and want to walk off with a marker, and I have to remind him to go put it back on the tray, but other than that, he really enjoys it.  Usually coloring will last about 30 minutes.  These pictures are from today when he is trying his hand at markers.  My sister gave me some great advice – I was going to get dry erase markers for the white board, but she told me that those don’t come out of clothes.  She said that she uses washable Crayola markers on the white board and then wash it off.  Great advice!  Now I don’t have to worry about him going back and forth from the paper to the white board.  It’s all the same marker!  And I just wiped it off with a baby wipe.  And by the way – don’t you love his apron.  I had forgotten he had gotten this at VBS one year.  What a perfect art apron!

Another fun activity we discovered this afternoon was Play-Doh.  He really did not understand at first.  But he quickly got the hang off it.  I did have to stay right there beside him, because he kept wanting to put it in his mouth.  He knew it wasn’t food, but he puts everything in his mouth, so I just had to keep reminding him not to do it. 

I’m sure I will be using these ideas and many more in the coming months!  If you have any other ideas, please share!