Stuck inside with your baby on a rainy day? Look no further than this indoor game of “croquet”, perfect for crawlers, to keep the little one entertained.

Cut the square ends off a shoebox and discard; you’ll be left with a rectangle.

Cut the remaining rectangle into pieces so you have 3 to 4 “wickets”.

If you’re using an adult-sized shoebox, tennis balls work great for this game. Because I used a child-sized shoebox, the tennis balls were too large but some balls we have from a shape sorter were just right.

I lined the wickets up in a row and showed Veronika how to roll the ball through them. She immediately gave her ball a little half-roll half-push.

She loved both watching me roll balls and taking her own turns. (Plus see the cat waiting to catch the ball? Everyone was entertained!).

After we had played with the wickets in a row, I set them up more free-form and encouraged her to roll balls back and forth and all around, crawling between wickets all the while.

Picking up wickets was half the fun, of course.

In sum, she loved this little game!