How are you holding up? Being stuck indoors with a toddler during this time is bloody hard isn’t it? Nothing seems to entertain them for long! Drawing, Play-Doh, cars, being out in the garden, etc occupies his attention span for just a short time. We are probably watching a lot more Bing and other annoying tv characters than I’d care to admit. I’m also finding that it has knocked his sleeping out of whack! He eventually fell asleep at 9.45pm last night and woke up at 12.35am. He was awake until 7am and is now sleeping next to me as I type this. His poor Dad is exhausted as he stayed up all night trying to get him back to sleep. So before you lose your mind, here are some ideas on things to do with a toddler this Easter. Photo below was taken before lockdown
Even if you don’t have a garden you can still do an Easter Egg hunt indoors. Although you might want lay off all the chocolate as a toddler high on the sugary stuff is not going to be fun! I bought a pack of plastic fillable Easter eggs (£3.99) from Aldi online. They will maybe still have some in store or you can buy a (#aff) pack of 36 from Amazon for £5.99 if you are self isolating. I also saw some in Tesco. You can fill the eggs with clues like a treasure hunt or with exercises such as 5 Bunny Hops, Running on the spot for 10 secs, etc to hopefully tire them out!
Not only will this keep them occupied for a little while, you also get a yummy treat at the end of it. There’s loads of recipes online for tasty treats such as creme egg brownies, rice crispies or cornflake nests, Easter bark or bunny shaped cookies. Or if you are too lazy busy like me, you can buy these (#aff) decorate your own gingerbread eggs from Tesco for them to do instead.
Hard boil some eggs and once cool let them decorate the shells with felt pens or paints. Random fact: in years gone by, eggs were wrapped in onion skins and then boiled to give the shells a pretty marbled look. If you have a slight hill in your garden they could even roll them to see whose egg reaches the bottom first. Once they are finished decorating them they also double up as a snack.
Even if you can’t have a picnic outdoors you can still have one inside. You could even get them to help you make the food. Cut some sandwiches with a bunny shaped cookie cutter, Tesco’s have some crisps shaped as bunnies (their own brand version of Pom Bears) and have some Easter cakes. Put a tablecloth or picnic rug on the floor and dig in!
I’m not sure about your toddler but mine has a fascination with water. We’ve been to a couple of messy play events and I practically have to drag him away from the water area. He’s not interested in mashing up jelly or playing in the coloured spaghetti, he just wants to puddle around with the boats and bath toys. To continue with the water fun at home use the plastic eggs mentioned earlier. Put them in a container of water and get them to fish them out using a slotted spoon or sieve. If you are doing this inside please put something under the container and around the surrounding area. Water gets everywhere!!
I managed to pick up some Easter crafty bits from the shops before the SHTF but you may still be able to buy things online. I’m not going to lie, I am actually looking forward to doing this myself with Noah. I’ve got some sun catchers to colour in, foam bunnies to decorate and some stickers to stick on things!
I hope this post has given you an idea on things to do with a toddler this Easter. If you can think of anymore let me know in the comments as I’d love to hear them.
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