We’re marking the one-year anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic, and still searching for novel ways to fill long days indoors. Here’s a simple twist on couch cushion play to keep things novel!

I pulled out all the couch cushions and simply told the kids it was an airplane, a little bit of imagination required; two long pillows formed the body and the two back pillows jutted off to the sides as the wings.

From there, the imaginative play was up to them! They added stuffed animal passengers, and got a kick out me taking on the role of pilot to make landing and takeoff announcements. (Depending how many times your children have traveled by air, you’ll likely need to model this for them before they pick up the lingo).

My passengers’ favorite part? Not just having a snack when the “concession cart” came along, but being naughty and eating snack on the wings!

If your kids are familiar with airports, they can make a much bigger game of this. Ticket counters? Security check?

Veronika has never seen an airport, but she latched right on to the idea of baggage claim. We packed up a little suitcase with some of her summer clothes and I placed it on the edge of the couch for her to claim.

She quickly ran over and was soon busy unpacking!

Why stop at the limits of Earth’s atmosphere? A little more imagination and a quick switch-up of the pillow configuration, and it swiftly became a rocket instead.

Here goes Veronika on a space walk!

We made pictures of the planets so we could decide which one we were zooming to.

This little astronaut needed her space suit on!

Again, your kids might want to get much more detailed with the game, especially if they’re older. Moon boots? Buttons and command controls inside the space ship? Experiments on board? We’d love to hear your how imaginative play goes, in the comments!

The kids have enjoyed several different scenarios of imaginative play lately, which I love not just because it gets them playing together so well, but also that it breaks them out of playing with the same old toys. So today we tested a third pretend game: a vet clinic!

I set out the various pieces of a toy vet set on the table, including thermometers, stethoscopes, creams, and medicines. But to up the fun factor, Travis and Veronika got some real medical supplies today too, including gauze pads, an ace bandage, and band-aids.

As the final touch, I printed out a patient checklist from Mess for Less, so the kids could register each animal that came to the clinic. Now we just needed patients! I lined up several of their stuffed animals along the couch as the “waiting room”. You could even use a small chair for each separate animal if you have several in your home!

Brother and sister both rushed over to see what was going on. Veronika immediately took to the task quite seriously. She loved administering shots and testing out the thermometer.

She also thought it was so fun to “fill out” the forms, circling the animal species and scribbling notes. (Hey, she already has doctor handwriting!).

Her favorite, though, was the real band-aids, and she was soon covering boo-boos and wiping animals with the gauze with such care.

Travis, meanwhile, was very into the forms and particularly liked recording high temperatures for all his sick patients.

Pretty soon, he took the game in a whole different direction: it turns out action figures need band-aids, too!

This had them imagining and playing together so well, making it a big win for a cold winter morning.

I have literally been saving this activity for a rainy day (okay, a snowy one, but basically I was waiting for any form of precipitation). I had a never-used camping play set in the closet that included a pop-up tent, fake campfire with plastic s’mores, a lantern, and binoculars. This make-believe camping is the perfect thing to occupy the kids when you have a day too blustery to get outside and camp for real!

I pulled out the set, and from here the idea really was just to let the kids engage in imaginative play. Of course they wanted to climb into the tent right away.

I wonder what nature treasures Veronika can see through the binoculars!

The campfire was a big hit, as was the pretend food. Veronika loved slicing at the various sausages and veggies and the kids “roasted” their marshmallows.

For a little arts & crafts, I printed out camping templates to color in. These featured signs of hikers, a tent label for our “campsite”, and a fire danger warning sign (you can even do a quick review of Smokey Bear while the kids color this one!).

As a side note, there’s no need purchase a camping set for your kids to enjoy this activity; it just happened to be something in the closet. But any tent (or blankets over chairs!) can be your campsite. For a campfire, use paper towel tubes as the logs and red or orange tissue paper as the flames (tea lights add to the authenticity!).

Real sticks with cotton balls on the end can be used for s’mores, and two toilet paper tubes taped together become binoculars in an instant.

Needless to say, this was a great way to imagine we were in the warm camping days of summer while a blizzard raged outside!

One of the things we’ve missed most during the COVID-19 pandemic is going to the library. So on a gray and rainy morning, we brought the library to us!

To set up, I first arranged some of the kids’ books along the couch like it was a display shelf.

We then printed out a template for Book Return and Book Check-Out signs. The Return sign went on a blue bin, and the Check-Out went on the table along with a remote to “beep” books out (of course!).

I had intended for the kids to make pretend library cards, but Veronika preferred scribbling all over the template instead of cutting out individual cards. Oh well!

Only a few final touches were needed now; we love the puzzle corner at the library, so recreated that with some favorite puzzles on the floor, and then set out a few chairs as reading nooks. Time to open the library doors!

The kids loved browsing.

Beeping out books was a big highlight! Veronika was still busy coloring but would pause now and then just to “beep!” a book.

Both kids soon had a cozy nook where they could read or take a book for a picture walk.

And then of course it was time to put books in the return bin and re-stock the shelves.

Don’t forget to set up dolls for a storytime! First I read to the dolls…

…and then Veronika took a turn.

I loved that this game even inspired Travis to pause and do puzzles, an activity he usually shies away from. For a moment there, I almost could believe we were back in the real library.