Household Items
Household Items ideas for children aged 2 to 8.
Everything in this section uses what is already in the kitchen, the recycling or the bathroom cupboard: cardboard boxes, pegs, muffin tins, colanders, sponges, tin foil, dried pasta, cotton wool, old socks, a roll of masking tape.
It is here because "we could do that, if only we had..." is where most activity ideas die. If you have a box and some tape, you can start now.
Masking tape and a cardboard box do more than any toy in the house, and both appear over and over. If you buy one thing after reading this site, make it a roll of masking tape.
Activities
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Measurement Activities for Preschoolers: Length, Weight and Capacity
Ten hands-on measurement activities for preschoolers: compare length with hand spans and block trains, explore weight with balance scales and hefting games, and play with capacity through pouring, cup-counting, and bath-time fun. No rulers needed — just everyday objects.
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How to Make Oobleck: Cornflour Slime Recipe for Kids
How to make oobleck with cornflour and water — the classic recipe for ages 4–5. Squeeze it solid, watch it melt to liquid, add color, then clear up the right way (never down the drain).
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Day and Night for Kids: Simple Explanation + Activity
Day and night for kids: the Earth spins once every 24 hours, so the side facing the Sun has day and the side turned away has night — with a flashlight spin-the-Earth demo.
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Counting Games for Preschoolers That Build Real Number Sense
Ten counting games for preschoolers that build real number sense — not just reciting numbers. Roll-and-count bears, sock toss, color number hunts, and kitchen counting games for ages 3–4, all using things you already own.
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Build a Wormery: Worm Observation for Kids
How to make a wormery: kids layer sand and soil in stripes in a jar, add a few gentle earthworms, and watch them tunnel and eat dead leaves for a week or two.
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Parts of a Seed for Kids: The Bean Root Observation Jar
Press soaked beans against the glass of a damp-towel jar and watch roots grow — root hairs, the root cap, and roots that always find down.
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Addition Word Problems for Kindergarten: Picture Stories Within 10
Addition word problems for kindergarten, told as picture stories: your 5–6-year-old hears each story, acts it out with counters, draws it, and solves it. Ten ready-to-tell stories, every sum 10 or less.
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Toddler Learning Activities at Home: 30 Ways to Teach Your 2-Year-Old
Simple toddler learning activities at home that teach your 2-year-old language, counting, colours and fine-motor skills through play — 30 ideas from things you already own, five to fifteen minutes each.
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25 Not-So-Spooky Halloween Crafts for Kids
Looking for halloween crafts for kids that keep the fun without the frights? These 25 not-so-spooky Halloween crafts use things you already own — paper plates, toilet rolls, flour, crayons — and every idea lists the age, the time, and the mess level up front, so you can pick one in seconds.
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Salt Dough Christmas Ornaments
Flour, salt and water become something you hang on the tree every year after.
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Handprint Reindeer Cards
A hand, upside down, is a reindeer. Nobody sees it until you show them.
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Paper Plate Christmas Wreath
Cut the middle out of a paper plate and you have a wreath that takes any decoration you like.
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Popsicle Stick Christmas Trees
Three sticks, a triangle, and as much decorating as they have patience for.
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Count the Pumpkin Seeds
Wash and dry the seeds from your pumpkin, then turn them into a counting game that lasts all week.
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Print Hearts With a Cardboard Tube
Squash a kitchen roll tube into a heart shape and use it as a stamp. One tube makes forty hearts.
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A Post Box for Kind Notes
A cereal box with a slot cut in it. Everyone posts a note about somebody else, and you read them out at dinner.
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Grow Hair on an Eggshell
Half an eggshell, a face drawn on, cotton wool and cress seeds. In a week it has green hair you can eat.
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Five Ways to Decorate an Egg With No Dye
Stickers, felt tips, wool, tissue paper and tape. All five work on a hard-boiled egg and none of them stain anything.
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The Button Who Wanted a Coat
A story about a lost button, and then a jar of real buttons to sort afterwards.
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A Masking Tape Obstacle Course
One roll of tape turns a hallway into a course to balance, jump and crawl along. Works in a flat, upstairs, in the rain.
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Turning a Box Into a Shop
A delivery box, a marker and whatever is in the cupboard. Then step back, because the play runs itself.
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Getting the Energy Out in a Small Room
Four ways to wear a child out indoors without breaking anything or annoying the neighbours downstairs.
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A Shape Hunt Round the House
Circles, squares and triangles are already everywhere. Give them a list and let them find them.
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Building Your Name Out of Sticks
Straight lines make most capital letters. Lolly sticks, twigs or straws turn letter shapes into something you build rather than draw.
