Toddler Activities at Home

Last Updated on January 28, 2026 by Jordyn Koveleski Gorman

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Toddlers are amazing. From a developmental standpoint, they’re changing at an insane rate of speed. New skills develop every single day it seems, and their vocabulary is expanding rapidly. With all that change, keeping up can feel daunting. Throw in a rainy day or a stretch of winter weather, and suddenly the walls of home are closing in.

That’s where Eat Play Say comes in. Play is literally our middle name. We’ve got tips, tricks, and activities to support you and your littles through cabin fever any time of the year.

Check out our top toddler activities at home below. If you like these, you’ll love our Playbooks! They have more than 100 age-appropriate, developmentally supportive ways to play with your child at each age, using only what you have at home!

Indoor toddler activities

Stuck inside? Time to exercise your littles’ budding imagination! Toddlers are the masters of pretend play. Our favorite pretend activities at home usually involve dress up clothes, and pretty much anything Melissa and Doug, but the opportunities are endless.

A few of our favorite pretend play ideas:

• Host a Puppet Show. Use a cardboard box with a hole cut out for the “stage.” No puppets? Use stuffed animals! Or you can make a simple popsicle stick puppet from our Summer Crafts Freebie!
• Play pretend delivery driver. Save some small boxes and fill them up with toys, including a few heavier objects (like a full shampoo bottle) for extra excitement for your little one. Use a laundry basket as a “delivery truck” and have your toddler push it around the house to deliver packages to everyone! If your toddler likes to dress up, our favorites are here!
• Use your toddler toy faves. Don’t forget classic pastimes such as Hot Wheels, Magnatiles, or playing house with dolls! A fan favorite is also playing veterinarian with stuffed animals.
• The floor is lava! Another classic game where the rules get to be whatever you want. This is great to play with stepping stones, couch cushions, or even paper taped to the floor! Just make sure your feet don’t touch the floor!
• Build a blanket fort! Gather blankets and pillows from around the house and use whatever structure you can to build a simple fort. For older toddlers, try to make an extra fancy fort with different rooms or hiding spots! Building a fort exercises so many fine motor, gross motor, and problem solving skills…and it’s fun for everyone!

Sticker books for toddlers

Sticker books are great tools for fine motor development. They’re an engaging activity that help toddlers learn multiple concepts at the same time. You can take them anywhere, including from room to room on a day stuck at home. You can find our favorites here.

Sticker books are such a great way to functionally introduce letters, numbers, and colors to littles. Paint by sticker books have become fast favorites for us. And the Cupkin brand sticker books are always on rotation for both my younger and older toddler, as they are such high quality!

Sensory activities for toddlers

Sensory play might be a buzzword, but it definitely lives up to the hype. Giving littles the chance to think and make decisions for themselves through sensory play builds imagination, creativity, and cognitive skills. (1)

If you’ve made it this far in parenthood, you already know there’s something magical about the outdoors. If it’s safe to do so, heading outside to take a nature walk, jump in puddles, or build a snowman are always big hits!

Other go-to sensory activities for a day at home with toddlers include:

• Build a sensory bin! There are so many variations you can explore. Try out taste-safe base options, use water, or make a countertop sandbox for the day. Sensory bins can be themed, too. Try out a red/pink theme for Valentine’s Day, green for St. Patrick’s, or orange and brown for the fall.
• Water play is the ultimate sensory activity. You can plop toddlers in the bathtub with a variety of bath toys. Options include measuring cups or spoons for pouring practice, bathtub markers, or anything else your child loves in the bath! Setting up a toy washing station has been known to pass half an hour easily. And, of course, heading outside to play with buckets of water, a sprinkler, or splash in puddles when weather allows.

Bring out the toddler books

Need to extend story time with your toddler? Try building a stack of books with your toddler that all fit a specific theme! It doesn’t have to be complicated to create a fun storytime at home.

Not sure which books are best for toddlers? We have a whole list of the most interactive books for toddlers here. You can read them together or let your toddler explore alone, too!

Take your book stack to a cozy corner and read together, making stories interactive wherever possible. Toddlers love to fill in the blank, so if they have a favorite book, be sure to pause and give them the chance to finish a sentence or call out an interactive phrase!

Need help picking out a theme for reading or play? Check out our 52 Play Themes freebie!

Toddler learning activities

If you’re looking to focus on a few specific skills with your toddler, the activities below encourage problem solving skills and functional use of objects.

Best toddler learning activities

• Make an obstacle course! Toss the couch cushions on the floor, set out little cones for weaving, and/or build a limbo bar! Gross motor activities can really help toddlers with problem solving (and they get the jitters out)! Find objects your littles can climb over or under, navigate around or through, and cheer them on as they go!
• Play Simon Says, but make it wild! Encourage your toddler to expend lots of energy with silly instructions like “Simon says to run around in circles!” or “Simon says to jump up and down!” Following directions has never been more fun!
• Laundry assistant. Littles can help pull clothes out of the dryer (or put clothes in) or hand articles of clothing to you to fold. Older toddlers can help sort or even carry small piles of clothes. Don’t want your piles knocked down? Try putting socks into a small bucket and have them try to make matches!
• Dish helper. Have your toddler help sort silverware from the dishwasher or stack plastic cups for storage. With extra support, toddlers can help dry dishes with a towel or rinse clean dishes off in the sink.
• Pick up buddy. Picking toys up from the floor is a task even young toddlers can help with. Although it is developmentally normal for toddlers to follow behind and “undo” the work, that doesn’t mean they can’t practice!
• Sous chef! Bake cookies together, or have them chop vegetables with a kid-safe knife. Toddlers love to be involved in the action. Pop them in their toddler tower and hand them premeasured ingredients they can dump, pour, or mix!

An added bonus to having a sous chef? If you’re struggling with a picky eater, it can be helpful to get them involved in the prep work. It truly makes all the difference!

Also, don’t feel bad if feeding is a challenge! Recent studies have actually shown a genetic component to picky eating, which I talked about in a recent interview with Motherly! You can learn some great strategies from this article and get some peace of mind.

Arts & crafts for toddlers

There are tons of arts and crafts you can do at home without having to purchase new or fancy supplies. These kinds of crafts are one of our specialties! In fact, all of our crafts can be completed in 10 minutes or less.

For a day at home, we recommend making pasta jewelry. Grab some larger pasta noodles, such as ziti or penne, and string them together on a precut string! You can make necklaces or bracelets. To make it easier to lace the noodles on, wrap a piece of tape around the end of the string.

And don’t forget about crafts with Play-Doh! There are so many fun kits and ways to play, and it’s interactive for littles and grownups too. Find our favorite Play-Doh sets here.

Need more craft ideas? Check out our arts and crafts freebies for every season!

Preschool activities at home

If you have an older toddler, it’s time to start thinking about more advanced play. Start thinking about grouping items by category, color, quantity, and size. When the weather is nice, head outside and go on a scavenger hunt! Encourage your child to look for leaves, flowers, cool rocks, or sticks. Anything is fair game!

If you’re stuck inside, grab some construction paper and cut out fun shapes to hide around the house. For a simpler version, you can make it a game of hide and seek with favorite stuffed animals. Make sure you hide things high and low, with varying levels of difficulty…but not so hard that your child gets frustrated and gives up!

Dry erase activity books are a great activity to practice early writing skills, too, and pair well with other skills practice (like cutting with scissors).

More ways to play

Looking for more developmentally appropriate ways to play with your toddler? We’ve got you covered for every scenario!

If you liked the activities in this post, you will love our Playbooks, which are filled with more than 100 age-appropriate, developmentally supportive ways to play with your child. No new toys or fancy equipment required!

Sources

1. Abidin, Anis & Ishak, Siti & Bakar, Ruhil & Abdul Rahman, Andrialis. (2022). Significance of Sensory Activities among Toddlers for Sensory Skills Development. Environment-Behaviour Proceedings Journal. 7. 15-27.