Everyone knows keeping a toddler’s attention span isn’t easy. Especially when we really need those busy toddlers to keep still or focused on something while we’re on the phone, making dinner or feeding a younger sib.

Ideally, we all want to keep our toddlers busy but also help them have fun and even learn something indirectly. What would be more fun than creating a snowstorm indoors?

I gave my toddler a bag of cotton balls to throw around and call it a snowstorm. Do this in the kitchen or hardwood because if you do this on carpet, the cotton ball fuzz will get ground into the carpet and make vacuuming a pain (I know this from past experience, it was ugly).

Scatter the snowballs randomly then hand your child a pair of tongs from the kitchen and ask them to “pick up” the snow. You’ll be amazed how a simple thing like tongs will draw their attention, give the child an opportunity to practise fine motor skills of picking up and it will keep them busy over and over.

My daughter loved filling up a bowl with cotton balls, counting them as she filled and then shrieking with delight as she tossed the cotton balls back up in the air to “snow” again and again.

Once we tired of the snowball pick-up game, the question was “what to do with all these cotton balls?”. So we made this Water Bottle Penguin – a quick craft to do easily right in the snowball scene!