Fun at Home: 15 Activities for Grandkids Using Stuff You Already Have — Grandkids Guide

The most memorable grandparent moments are rarely the expensive ones. The Maritime Aquarium trip fades. The afternoon they helped you make something — or discovered they could do something they couldn’t do before — that’s the one they tell people about.

Here’s what actually works, sorted by what you likely already have at home.

With Paper and Markers

1. Story Stones Lite — Story Cards

Cut index cards or scrap paper into squares. Draw (or have them draw) one thing on each card: a dragon, a grandma, a boat, a rainstorm, a key. Shuffle. Draw three cards and tell a story using all three. Then deal again.

No artistic skill required. A stick figure dragon is funnier than a real one.

2. Map of Imaginary Places

Give them a blank piece of paper and one rule: draw a map of somewhere that doesn’t exist. It needs a name, at least three places on it, and a legend. You can add rules as you go — “there has to be a river” or “one place has to be dangerous.”

Ages 5–12 can do this for an hour. The finished map is something worth keeping.

3. Comic Strip

Three boxes, drawn with a ruler. They fill them in. Doesn’t matter what it’s about. The constraint (three boxes, a beginning/middle/end) is what makes it work.

With Tape

Tape is underrated as a craft supply. A roll of painter’s tape costs $3 and opens up an afternoon.

4. Floor Racetrack

Tape a road on the hardwood or carpet. Intersections, a loop, a tunnel under the coffee table. Run toy cars on it. This takes 20 minutes to set up and holds a 4-year-old for an hour.

5. Indoor Hopscotch / Balance Course

Tape a line they have to walk heel-to-toe. A square they have to jump in and out of. A path they can only hop on one foot. Simple. Physical. Grandkids who’ve been sitting in a car for two hours need this.

6. Target Practice

Tape a target on the wall (a paper plate works, or just concentric squares of tape). Balled-up socks as “balls.” Start close, step back as you score. You can play this too.

With Kitchen Supplies

7. Sensory Bin

Fill a plastic bin with dry rice, dried beans, or oatmeal. Add small cups, spoons, funnels, or any container with a hole. Toddlers and preschoolers will pour and sift for a surprisingly long time.

Put a towel under it. Accept the mess.

8. Watercolor with Coffee Filters

Coffee filters absorb watercolor paint beautifully — the colors blend and bloom in a way that looks nothing like painting on paper. Add water drops with an eyedropper to spread colors. When dry, fold into a butterfly shape and clip a clothespin in the middle.

All you need: watercolors (or food coloring + water), coffee filters, a brush or eyedropper.

9. Baking as a Project, Not a Task

The difference between “helping grandma bake” and a real activity is agency. Let them choose which kind (cookies vs. muffins). Let them crack the eggs even if they get shell in it. Let them frost it however they want.

The result doesn’t have to look good. It has to be theirs.

10. “Restaurant”

They’re the chef, you’re the customer. You order something (using only ingredients that exist). They make it. This works best when you play it straight — write down the order, be picky about the presentation.

A six-year-old making you a peanut butter banana wrap because that’s “today’s special” is a good afternoon.

With Things You’re Throwing Away

11. Cardboard Box Anything

A large box from a recent delivery becomes: a house, a rocket, a car, a store register, a hiding spot. Provide tape, markers, and scissors (you hold the scissors). Let them design it.

Don’t help too much. The version they made is better than the version you’d make.

12. Egg Carton Mini Golf

Cut egg carton cups apart, label them with point values, line them up. Use a plastic spoon and a ping pong ball (or balled-up foil). Highest score after 10 shots wins.

13. Paper Bag Puppets

Lunch bags + markers + scraps = puppets. Ten minutes of construction, twenty minutes of show. Grandparents make excellent audience members.

Slower Activities (For the Quiet Stretches)

14. Teach Them Something You Know

Knitting. Poker. Solitaire. How to read a map. How to tie a specific knot. How to identify a bird call. Whatever skill you actually have — teach it. They remember this differently than they remember a game.

15. Memory Box

Go through a box of old photos together. Tell them the story behind three of them. Let them pick one to keep. This isn’t an activity so much as something that becomes important later.

A Note on Supplies Worth Having

A small stash of art supplies keeps a lot of rainy afternoons running smoothly. The basics that earn their shelf space:

Crayola watercolor set — cheap, works great on coffee filters, washable
Air-dry clay — no baking required, dries in 24 hrs
Googly eyes (500 pack) — self-adhesive, make everything funnier
Painter’s tape — safe on floors and walls, floor racetracks and targets
Index cards (500 ct) — story cards, drawing prompts, the license plate game
A hole punch (oddly satisfying for kids — any office supply brand)

You don’t need much. The constraint is part of what makes it creative.

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More ideas for staying in: Rainy Day Activities in Fairfield County | Browse indoor play spaces