What’s one supply you’ll use over and over again to entertain your kids? Contact paper.
I love how versatile contact paper is when it comes to kids’ activities. Basically any traditional cut-and-paste art activity can be converted into a glue-free activity with the help of contact paper.
Plus, it’s unique and fun, so it’ll keep us entertained as well!
Today I’m sharing five of our favorite mess-free indoor activities that use contact paper.
What Is Contact Paper?
Contact paper is a shelf liner. It’s kind of like a giant sticker in that you peel off the backing and it’s sticky on that side and decorative or clear on the other side.
I actually used it to cover my paperback textbooks in college and as a sort of laminator to make bookmarks. (Yes, I was a nerd.)
I’ve never, ever used it as a shelf liner, though I imagine it would work pretty well for that!
Looking for an organized guide of fun, easy activities to do with your toddler that also encourages their growth and development?
I’ve created a 3-month activity planner just for busy parents like you! The plan includes 65 detailed, simple, and stress-free activities including: arts and crafts, sensory play, motor skills, and STEM–all using easy-to-find supplies.
Let me help make planning activities for your toddler easy, so you can skip the stress and get straight to the fun!
Where Can I Find Contact Paper?
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I got my roll of contact paper at Target in the shelf liner section in the kitchen department. You can also find contact paper on Amazon.
There’s so many varieties to choose from. I recommend using clear contact paper for the following activities. At the bottom of the post, I’ll include shopping links for other fun contact papers.
5 Mess-Free Indoor Activities with Contact Paper
1. Sticky Sidewalk
This is the easiest activity of the bunch and a great way to introduce contact paper to little ones. Simply tape a large piece of contact paper to the floor and invite toddlers to walk on it. They’ll love feeling their feet stick to the contact paper and hearing the *shhhkk* sound their feet make when lifting off the paper.
My three-year-old was also fascinated by rolling bouncy balls across the sticky sidewalk.
TIP: Use duct tape to secure the contact paper to the floor otherwise it’ll come off with your child’s foot!
2. String Spirals
A few of you readers are going to split hairs and call me out on the title of this activity because no, that’s not string we’re using, that’s yarn. I know. I just liked the alliteration. For what it’s worth, you can use plain old white string to do this activity, too.
Anyway, to do this activity, tape a sheet of contact paper to the wall or window. Draw spirals on the sticky side of the contact paper with a permanent marker (so it won’t rub off on your kid’s fingers). Cut a few pieces of string or yarn and trace the spirals.
This activity requires a bit of fine motor skill and finesse to get the string on the spiral. Young toddlers could try making lines or just work on getting the string onto the contact paper.
3. Birthday Cake Decorating
Similar to String Spirals, but with a fun theme, we have birthday cake decorating. Draw a birthday cake on the sticky side of contact paper with a permanent marker. I did a three-tier cake.
Provide birthday candles, yarn, pipe cleaners, pom poms, gems, sequins, paper shapes, basically anything that would be fun to decorate with. Let your kid go to town.
4. Four-Seasons Tree
Why just do one season when you could do all four? I cut out little flowers, leaves, branches, and fruit out of construction paper. I crumpled little pieces of white paper to make snow.
Then I drew an outline of a bare tree on contact paper with a permanent marker.
I let my toddler decorate the tree however she wanted. At first she tried to make her tree look like the weeping cherry tree outside our window. Then she decided to add apples… and snow… hence, the four-seasons tree.
5. Color Sorting with Contact Paper
Tape a large piece of contact paper to a table or wall. With permanent marker, draw zig-zags or lines in different colors on the contact paper. Have your toddler stick matching colored pom poms on the line.
This also works with colored paper pieces, but I think pom poms are much more fun.
6. Imaginative Play with Stickers
I bought a couple packs of foam stickers to help myself out with this activity. One was transportation-themed and the other was mermaid-themed.
I set one set of stickers out, taped contact paper to the window, and let my daughter’s imagination take over.
Since she struggled to get the backs off the stickers, using contact paper was perfect to make this activity low maintenance for me.
It turned out to be a great independent play activity with the addition of contact paper.
It’s also really easy to customize by picking up a foam sticker (or felt) pack that your toddler would be excited about. Also, feel free to add other little props or make drawings (like roads or whatnot) to go along with your theme.
One thing that bugged me is that the backs can come off of the stickers if you just stick them on there. Then once the back is removed and you stick the sticker onto the contact paper, it’s stuck for good. This really didn’t happen a lot.
7. Contact Paper Suncatcher
Draw a shape in permanent marker on a small piece contact paper. Have your toddler fill in the shape with tissue paper pieces. Then stick another piece of contact paper on top to “laminate” the tissue paper design.
Cut out the shape, tape a string to it, and hang it up in a window to catch the sunlight.
GRab a Roll of Contact Paper, Get out There, and Play!
This is the exact roll of contact paper we use.
We use this type as privacy film for our windows.
And we use this magnetic chalkboard contact paper on our kids’ tables!
(This one is just plain chalkboard if you’re not interested in it being magnetic.)
Looking for an organized guide of fun, easy activities to do with your toddler that also encourages their growth and development?
I’ve created a 3-month activity planner just for busy parents like you! The plan includes 65 detailed, simple, and stress-free activities including: arts and crafts, sensory play, motor skills, and STEM–all using easy-to-find supplies.
Let me help make planning activities for your toddler easy, so you can skip the stress and get straight to the fun!