Here is a comprehensive list of over 100 fun and simple play activities for kids to keep them busy and stretch that often under-exercised muscle of creativity! I’ve pulled this list together from the Imagination Tree archives to make one, ultimate go-to list of screen-free ideas for rainy days and twitchy kids.
Bookmark it, pin it or print it out and come back to visit often. I know I will be using it myself as my reference to previous activities that we have done together. These are all tried and tested with my own three kids and have helped me retain my sanity on the exhaustingly long, yet magical, days of early childhood! Click through each title to read the posts. Pin your favourites!
Enjoy!
1. Make 4 minute play dough and use it to make cupcakes, bread, cookies, sweets, chocolates or any of these 50+ other recipe variations and activity ideas!
2. Create a treasure basket
3. Make art on the window
4. Create a story box to retell a favourite story
5. Use a salad spinner to create some spin art, and turn it into leaves, fireworks, hearts and easter eggs
6. Print with broccoli, peppers, spaghetti, toy cars, muffin tins, cardboard tubes, egg cartons or cookie cutters
7. Make salt dough and use it to create hand and foot prints, ornaments, leaf prints or letters
8. Use stickers to tell stories or make quick art work
9. Make some cloud dough and use it to make a seaside sensory box
10. Use wool to wrap around cardboard shapes, introduce weaving or make a birds nest
11. Make some sparkly soap mud
12. Set some toys in jelly(o) and dig them out, simply play and explore with it, freeze and defrost it
13. Play with shaving cream, stir in colours, write in it, lift marbled prints from it
14. Freeze some toys in ice and try and have a race to see who can excavate them the quickest
15. Stack some cups and explore coloured shadows
16. Construct paper tube chutes for dropping beans and pom poms
17. Go on a colour hunt and make a giant rainbow collage
18. Turn a box into a town and draw roads and buildings inside, or turn it into a train track with a station
19. Set up a role play coffee shop, garden centre, shoe shop, doctor’s surgery, hospital, post office, library
19.Make some clothes peg fairies or rainbow flower gnomes
20. Practise writing letters and numbers in sensory salt
21. Make some finger-paint prints
22. Act out Goldilocks with sensory story props
23. Watch colours dance through multi-coloured Oobleck
24. Make a favourite book character from play dough such as The Gruffalo
25. Use handprints to measure things
26. Make catchers from milk jugs and play with a ball
27. Set up a reading tent and read a pile of books together with milk and cookies
28. Freeze some rice for cool sensory play on a hot day
29. Make a rock pool and tell seaside stories
30. Have a coloured, scented bath in the middle of the day
31. Paint a table top with chalkboard paint then draw on it, make train tracks and create a city
32. Put together a sensory tub themed around fairies, baking, Christmas, patriotism, Autumn, seaside, storytelling
33. Get up to your elbows in rainbow spaghetti
34. Whisk up some coloured sensory soap
35. Mix colours with water and pipettes
36. Cut some herbs and add them to play dough, sprinkle on play pizzas, create scented water for play
37. Jump in paint and print with wellie boots
38. Decorate some gingerbread play dough people with buttons
39. Make your own edible fingerpaints, soap paints, outdoor glitter paints or natural paints
40. Make a rainstick
41. Use shells to create your own fossils in salt dough
42. Set up an outdoor concoctions area for making mud pies and grass soup
43. Make a pirate map, a treasure chest from a cardboard box, a sandy pirate island and go on adventures
44. Experiment with magnetism
45. Use an enormous cardboard box to become a crawl-through sensory tunnel or to watch glowing lights
46. Collect petals to make perfume
47. Create a dinosaur land in a tray
48. Scoop and pour with dried pulses and bottle top funnels
49. Poke pipe cleaners through a colander and into play dough
50. Make pictures with felt shapes
51. Use plastic bottles to make discovery bottles and I-Spy games
52. Make some rainbow shape and alphabet crayons
53. Collect recycled materials to make open-ended play boxes
54. Create a giant collage version of the Very Hungry Caterpillar
55. Scrape forks or combs through paint
57. Make a frozen alphabet
58. Sort colours and practise number skills in an egg carton
59. Make a sensory farmyard in a tray
62. Make a rain gauge
63. Grow beans on cotton balls
64. Paint with fly swatters
65. Use masking tape to make tape-resist art work
66. Fold paper over paint to make blotto prints
68. Use sticky paper to make stained glass window art
69. Weave old artwork through a paper bag
71. Paint with water on coloured chalk
72. Blow paint through a straw
73. Make wrapping paper and gift tags
74. Celebrate with a pretend play birthday party
75. Put paper all over the floor and have a huge doodling session
76. Build with blocks and set a challenge
77. Make a leaf or flower crown
78. Thread a rainbow pasta necklace
79. Use clothes pegs to make fairies
80. Print with bubble wrap to make the ocean
81. Crush chalk to make paint
82. Use household objects to make music
83. Have an impromptu tea party
84. Plant a fairy garden
85. Paint with cotton buds
86. Decorate a flower pot and plant seeds
87. Explore shells using sand play dough
88. Create land art with natural materials found on a walk
89. Paint in the bath or on the windows with shaving cream bath paint
90. Make The Very Hungry Caterpillar from play dough and retell the story together
91. Play with real cooking equipment and dried beans
92. Add patterns and textures to play dough to make Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory
93. Decorate play dough gingerbread men with buttons
94. Make gluten free snow-dough and cut out snowflakes or roll snowmen
95. Cut potatoes to make shapes and then print them in paint
96. Make glitter sidewalk/ pavement paints for outdoor art work
97. Make a batch of homemade coloured moonsand
98. Create an ocean in a bottle
99. Make your own light box for sensory play
100. Change the colour of flowers in a science experiment
See all our other play collection posts by theme here:
The A-Z of Play dough Recipes and Activities
12 Art Projects using Tissue Paper
Without a doubt, this is my favourite play inspiration website! Thank you x
What a great list! Thanks for putting it together. I will be pinning it right away. Mel
Great list. You can never have too many boredom busters!!!
What an incredible resource Anna! Thank you for compiling such an inspiring and thorough list of easy playful ideas. So brilliant – we shall never be bored again!
Thank you! This is an incredible list of ideas! I can’t wait to get started with my 3 yr old daughter. Lifesaver!!!!! You are so talented. I have added all your blogs to my IPad screen for a quick reference!