In Marbella on most summer days the UVI index is very high and playgrounds have a major downside: they’re almost all in the sun (yes, no shades)! Parks and beaches are great when you go early in the morning or late in the afternoon, but… what do you do for the rest of the day?

These are some activities I enjoy doing with Oliver all year round, and they’re easy to prep, very versatile and materials are not expensive to buy (or even free). Most of the videos were taken on a fun morning we spent at our place with Bella, Oliver’s best friend. Here Oliver is 16 months and Bella 20 months. And yes, you can hear me laugh in the video, I just couldn’t help it! They’re adorable together!

Dancing

I’m not exaggerating, they danced for at least one hour. I use, as always, the Super Simple Songs, which I absolutely love! They’re fun, repetitive (hence great to learn words) and very versatile—you can do your own dance or learn the proper moves on their website. Watch how much Bella and Oliver loved them!

Music session

Just before dancing, we had a little music session. I got inspired from our activity class, and made a music basket for Oliver: it’s nothing fancy, just a set of instruments in a basket. Easy peasy! The instruments are: a harmonica, a flute, a maraca, castanets, a bell and a rattle, a xylophone and… a spoon and a small pan.

Oliver still can’t play the harmonica—he usually asks me to play it for him—but Bella got very good very quickly, as you can probably hear in the video above.

Play dough

Our friend Kathrin lent us some play dough saying it would change our life. It did! Oliver loves it and he doesn't care at all we only one color!

Colouring

They loved colouring with crayons. Oliver usually gets bored very quickly, but when Bella was here they sat and coloured for quite a long time.

What they really loved, though, is to «paint the wall»! We did it once in our activity class: we stuck a big paper sheet on the wall and used washable finger paint and a roll (or our hands) to make… art. Very easy to clean, too: just a bit of water and everything was like new! They loved it so much that I replicated it at home and it was a huge hit!

Passing the ball

It took a while for them to understand the game, but when they did, they played ball for at least 15 minutes. Oliver threw it towards (at) Bella, Bella picked it up and threw it towards (at) Oliver. They laughed so hard!

Feeding the dog - Team work

Team work is always great and gets kids very involved. It can be any team work, from organising the apartment by having them pass objects to each other and put them away, to, in this case, feeding the dog, as you can see in this video.

Cleaning

Oliver loves helping us clean! That’s why I decided to buy a good set which can actually clean (this is by beautiful Melissa & Doug: a bit expensive, but great quality and materials, very steady, and beautiful design). Oliver loves it and he hasn’t even discovered yet that he can actually wet the mop…!