If your at home during the week with your kids then I probably don’t have to tell you the winter months are the hardest. After a week or two with everyone stuck indoors, getting out of the house is an absolute must for the sanity of all! Here are our top five free Richmond preschooler friendly indoor activity suggestions.
1. The VMFA- This may be a strange pick of a place to take little ones but hear me out. The VMFA is full of wonder! It’s a great place to kickstart learning and add context for so many topics for your kids. We’ve practiced abstract art at our home and then taken a trip to browse the modern and abstract art exhibits. Great news, all three year olds can get abstract art; even if making or understanding it is over the head of some of us adults. They also have added a special hands on kids exhibit called Dig It. Truly, my kids had a blast checking it out and learned a few things about China too! Bonus is that it’s on a secluded hallway and pretty enclosed with no breakables nearby. You can let your littles explore with their loud voices and fast hands, worry free!
2. Library- We are obsessed with the library. There are free story times all around the area geared for all different ages. Check your local libraries website for the story time schedule. Our love for the library is not limited just to story time, we often load up and explore our neighborhood library during those dreaded post nap afternoon hours. Especially, when it’s too yucky to be outside. For some reason my kids love library Legos despite getting bored with the set we have at home. We gather a bag full of books and movies. The kids make a mess with all the libraries toys and furniture. Best of all we get out of the house! Win!
3. Bowling 🎳- Bowl America offers this amazing kids pass that allows year round free bowling! It’s totally free- shoes, balls and all! Most times we’ve been my kids don’t have the attention span for a whole game so we don’t keep score by person. We do one person and they take turns rolling the ball down the lane. Once they tire of that we check out all the arcade games. Which means I let them press all the buttons on the games and offer them no money to actually play. Once we’ve done all that we are all ready for lunch!
4. Barnes and Noble- This activity is only free if you refrain from buying a coffee at the attached Starbucks. Best of luck to you in that. Many Barnes and Nobles offer story times, check their website for the schedule. Aside from that they all have train tables as well as gobs of cute kids books to read aloud to your little while in the store. They also have a toy section to entertain your small one with.
5. Chesterfield Towne Center- Once again only free if you buy nothing. This is one of the few remaining indoor malls in the area. The advantage of it all being inside is lots of middle space for your kids to run off a bit of that energy. They also have a couple of small play areas that are entirely enclosed for your kids to go wild in. These spaces include a handful of plastic animals, etc. for the kids to climb on and through. In the mall there is an attached Barnes and Noble so you could always combine this with suggestion number four. 👍
Fingers crossed warm, park filled days will be here soon! We are so over winter at our home. Hopefully these suggestions will give a little variety to the few winter weeks left.
xo,
Amanda
Amanda Idleman Writes 