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Home > Toddlers > Rainy Day Activities
 Rainy Day Activities for Toddlers
In Malta we are very lucky, as rainy days are not very common. On most days, we can go out with our children to enjoy the sunshine and good weather. On those few days when we are stuck at home, our children will be in desperate need of entertainment. Therefore it is better if we have a secondary plan that we can use when these days come along. For children over 2 years of age, there are a few simple activities which can keep them happily occupied even while they are at home behind closed doors. Here are a few tips:
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Make masks
Children love to dress up, and adding a mask to their ‘costume’ is something that they will like to do. From your end, what you need to keep is some thick cardboard (cereal boxes are perfect for this), colours and some elastic. Draw the base for your children, and then cut it out. Let them fill it in with colours, then cut out the eyes and mouth. Cut two small holes in line with the eye-holes and tie in elastic so that the mask can be worn . You can complete the look by adding covers for the hands and ears. Animal masks are great fun since you can easily add paws for the hands and feet. Once the masks are done you can go around the house roaring like a lion or leaping like a frog. Join in the fun and let them make a mask for you as well.
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Gluing Art
If it is sticky and messy, children will love it. Children love gluing, and with a some thought this can be turned into a nice creative session. You can start off by cutting out bits of coloured paper in different small shapes. Give your children a stick of glue, teach them how to open it and close it, and then let them use it. You can find non toxic glue which won’t hurt them if it ends in their mouth. Keep some wipes handy to minimize the damage. Children can fill in a drawing with particular shapes, or use the shapes to create something out of it. Don’t set down rules, let them try out what they have in mind. You can then experiment with different items to glue, like cotton, pieces of fabric, wooden pegs, matches (if they are old enough not to put them in their ears, eyes, mouth or nose) tissues, leaves, petals and anything that you have around. You can also give them cardboard boxes or empty toilet paper rolls to use as base on which to stick items to. It will keep your child busy and at the same time encourage creativity.
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Cooking
It may sound very risky but in reality, it will enhance their self esteem if they can do something that they know is a grown up task. One good way of keeping them busy for some hours would involve preparing a basic dough, playing with it for some time, and then filling it with ham and cheese to make a pie. Of course you will need to hide some of the dough that you prepare and change it with the one that is played (which will probably end up grey by the end of it) when you come to actually fillign it up to bake it. Be prepared to clean up the mess afterwards, but it will be worth it. What’s more, the children will probably eat the pie because they know that they have done it themselves. Let them put the ham and the cheese, and close it off themselves. Make one for each of you children and you can distinguish them by putting a ‘flag’ (a toothpick with a little paper inserted in the top part of it) on each of them. Watching them bake in the over with the flag on top will do the trick for you. If they hate to eat vegetables you can try to put some boiled carrots, peas and cheese inside of it, as chances are that they will eat them in this case.
Do you have some other good rainy day activities? Share them with BabiesMalta.com by clicking here.
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