Rainy day activity: Indoor baseball

We're enjoying the last gasps of sun here in Portland, but indoor entertainment season is on its way. Tracy's game sounds fun for all ages:

It was raining by our house the other day and our youngest (2.5 yrs) wanted to play baseball. Of course playing baseball in the house isn’t the brightest idea in the world… however we figured out a way to make it work. We used a soft baseball bat and a large blown up balloon. Since we have a large open spot in our basement, we decided to try it. We let “pitched” the balloon to our 2 yr old and she would swing away. Since balloons move slower, she was able to hit a couple times before the balloon would hit the ground. It helped to work on the hand/ eye coordination and she thought it was pretty cool that we played baseball even though it was raining. Just be sure that you have enough room to adequately do this without hitting other siblings during the swing!

You could also devise a decent game of indoor golf with your bat and a hacky-sack or tennis ball.

Related: Major league baseball game too long for the kids? Try half of a minor league double-header

Comments

[Jill in Atlanta]

We play "air ball". I pretend to throw, they pretend to swing, we sort of share the job of saying "ball", "strike" or "thwhack" and then they run some random path through our house. Sometimes I "tag them out" but we usually all get home runs. This can be played anywhere at anytime. We enjoy entertaining people at airports especially. --And my pitching is really improving ;)

[Leigh]

Balloons are one of our favorite indoor entertainments. My boys (2.5 and 4) will play "keep the balloon in the air" for a long time. When that gets old, I blow up a couple more and they play "Balloon battle" where they hold a balloon in each hand and hit the other person's balloons.