Indoor Winter Play (To calm a fractious Toddler)

What a busy couple of weeks we've had! Rhubarb and I have been away at Granny and Grandad's for a week, I've been back into work for the first time in a couple of months and Rhubarb has been to the childminder's for 3 days in a row. By Thursday I had a very tired and fractious toddler on my hands.

If you have a toddler or young child you'll know that once they become overtired there's no turning back! This particular morning Rhubarb wanted everything out in the playroom but didn't want to play with any of it. With my energy levels at a low and the weather being more than a bit chilly I decided to set up an 'imagination station' after lunch. I needed things that would focus my frazzled toddlers mind but also offer her enough choice so that she didn't become bored and frustrated.

It only took 5 minutes to set up and it worked a treat! I stuck to a wintery theme and chose objects and materials to catch Rhubarb's attention. I first covered a tray in tin foil and made some icebergs by crumpling pieces of foil up, I added a small metal tray as a pond and some winter themed bath, lego and Happyland figures to play with. I also made a burrow for the rabbit with the green, blue and purple sections of our wooden rainbow. On a big sheet of white paper I laid out white and blue play dough with winter animal cutters (penguins etc.) and some crayons in blue shades. Then I added the all important sprinkle of snowflake and star table confetti to add a bit of sparkle!

When Rhubarb came into the playroom she spotted the wintery scene and made a beeline for it straight away   . First of all she busied herself picking up every snowflake and star and placing them one by one on the table; she studied and inspected them all carefully before putting them onto her white scribble pad on the floor and pointing to the glitter glue. It's pretty tricky to get out of the tube so I squirted it onto the paper for her and she sat arranging the sparkles and moving the glue around until she was happy with the arrangement. She then moved onto the play dough and over the course of the afternoon played with everything I'd put out at the 'imagination station', even coming back to it after tea to have another go!

And Mummy? Well I managed to fit in at least a couple of brews and the play dough made a wonderful stress ball! What started as one of 'those' days turned  out to be creative, calm and enjoyable - happy Rhubarb = happy Mummy :-)