Towels rolled up long wise can be put under the couch at the edge to keep small things from rolling under, or old sheets.
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My daughter found a hard rubber lacrosse ball that we use for massage/ trigger points and she’s obsessed with it. It’s approximately tennis ball size but doesn’t have the fuzziness or chemical smell that comes with a tennis ball. It also isn’t as bouncy
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My mom got bobbin a grapefruit sized spiked ball that she loves. She can hold it easily because of the spikes, it has a satisfying bounce, and it’s big enough that it doesn’t get caught as easily under stuff
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Target has satisfyingly sized, soft, bouncy, non chewable toy balls that look like sports balls that we love 
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For slightly older kids (preschool to early elementary) when I ran an after school program their favorite game was to give me one word each and then I had to put them into a story. Of course it often devolved into potty talk but they would at least calm down while they listened for their word to come up.
For older kids you could reverse it: have them write words on slips of paper, mix them up in a bag and then draw some out. They have to tell or write a story with the words they draw. It’s kind of like mad libs (another fun game when they know parts of speech)
My 1-year old is obsessed with dot markers now.
And he is starting to do OK with Melissa and Doug animal puzzles.
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Towels under the couch is genius! Thank you so much for the idea!
Update: my parents are now handing baby fruit from their backyard for “bawl” play. He enjoys throwing the tangerine and lemon a lot. He’s fascinated by the pomelo and walks around the house holding it with both hands. 
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Replying to @Bracken_Joy from other thread:
It’s nothing novel, I promise! 
Just trying to stay creative and build off his interests. I try to incorporate vocab, more complex speech (in partnership with speech therapist), STEM ideas (counting, shapes), and imaginative play to try to bring it all together? I honestly don’t know what I’m doing so it makes me feel better to feel like I have a list?
He’s shown more interest in trucks and rockets/space, so I surf buy nothing or FB marketplace for free/cheap toys related to this, cutting our magazine things or computer print outs in these themes, drawing the different objects together. Constantly counting like and like things - how many sticks did we get, how many planets in the book, etc.
Word vomit of things I am doing:
We’re building a rocket out of boxes later.
He likes cuddling in blankets so we build forts that vary in their themes - sometimes we are owls in a tree or magical moon lions (from a movie he likes).
We have fun with dress up so we make things like crowns and wings out of paper.
He loves planes and his dad loves explaining things about aircraft and historical battles (which are a hit during story time, shockingly) so we got a paper plane book for free off but nothing and dad is gonna use it for story time. Can imagine printing out would be good too.
Lots of co-helping chores around the house and care of the animals and teaching good behavior and some emotional intelligence stuff like "Philip is scared when you throw things, we need to use soft words and gentle touches"etc. EVEN THOUGH THIS MAKES CHORES TAKE APPROX A MILLION YEARS.
Bilingual exposure is important to us so we ask the nanny to speak to him in spanish and we teach him the parallel words for things he knows (moon = la luna, light = la luz, etc) and use books in spanish that we bought but I’m sure library has if your COVID #s are low enough for them to be open rn. Also can find kids stories of other languages for free on internets.
LOTS OF SINGING AND MUSIC. A spotify list of different kids songs but also easy classics so we don’t lose our minds - Annie’s tomorrow, Sound of Musics Favorite Things. I am an encyclopedia of kids songs right now that I regularly to adapt to his interests. Frere Jacques has an equivalent helicopter song.
I really NEED to spend more time outside and give him more physical things to do but I am personally weak on that so if you have ideas pls help me.
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Oh, we are also trying to do more parallel play lately so we model activities like reading our books while he reads his.
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We also have a kiddo who loves trucks and busses and we are lucky to live somewhere we can walk and see trains and busses and trucks going by on the road. So we walk over and crouch down and point and say “BUS!” “TRAIN!” “HI BUS!” “BYE TRAIN!” and TRUCCCCKKK!!. We also sing the wheels on the bus and make noises for trains (chugga chugga choo choo!) and trucks (HONK!).
On our walks we go up and down stairs and we practice balancing on curbs and parking barriers (like a balance beam while holding his hand and walking next to him).
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Replying to add that we also bike, which is physical for me but not him, as he just sits in the seat. But we talk as we go (he counts cars that pass us, and we point out buses and trains and say things like WEEEEEEE and GO! GO!).
My happiest biking with kids hack is that I got a huge dog blanket and did some little changes (cutting off the chest and then reattaching the straps to the part that goes over the dog back) and now we have an amazing waterproof insulated bike coat, with elastic that goes over either dog legs or the feet of the bike seat and a strap that goes around the seat to hold it on. We live in the PNW so winter biking is cold and wet but not snowy and this thing is amazing. When it’s a bit warmer, he’ll wiggle his arms out and hold them out like he feels like he’s flying off the edge of the titanic while we go down hill, but when it’s cooler, he keeps the arms bundled down within the blanket. It takes just seconds to put it on and off, and when he’s not in it, it’ll still stay on the seat and keep it warm and dry.
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@Meowkins I forget what age your little is… For me the barriers are that outside now involves wrestling two ift us into layers and then going out, and that 
can’t navigate in his snowsuit so it isn’t active yet.
If you can both get into your outdoor stuff is there a path by a creek or anything? Trees? We did a dog park the other day (staying outside the enclosure) and loved barking at the woof woofs
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Now that Latte is walking (astoundingly well), we’ve started going to a little pocket of nature near us and doing fun things like trying to eat pine cones. (Only one of us, you’re welcome to guess which )
This has been extra great since she gets worn out and naps really well!
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Following on from this, we’re doing shadow puppetry tomorrow! Duckling likes getting out a torch or one of our phones at bedtime and doing hand puppets. Tomorrow I’m going to have a go at making a puppet theatre for him out of a box and we’ll make puppets from black paper and sticks.
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Both my 20 month and nearly 4 year old love sorting poms by color. I give them a muffin tin and they play for a good 20-30 minutes!
I also hear cats really like the glitter variety…
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Can confirm. Glitter ones of all sizes.
Hello fellow parents.
I am falling into a rut. Our playing together lately consists of me lying on the ground and rough housing with him. We play hide and seek and sometimes talk about his animals. Sometimes we read books?
There is a lot of time where I am doing Something Else and he is playing on his own. There’s also a lot of time where I am doing Something Else and he is constantly doing things he shouldn’t so I have to keep saying no and removing the offending objects.
With regularity we watch tv as the coffee sets in or while I get dinner ready/while I stare into space.
I feel like I am an unengaging and lame parent. Please tell me how you have gotten out of thisnrut. Or offer solidarity for also being in this rut with me.
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Solidarity
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Currently sitting on the couch while my child’s watches Blippi (sigh) and trying not to snap when he wants me to voice his current imaginary friend according to the general script he has in his head. So far today I have voiced Star Wars Robot, Bad Ahsoka (can’t just call her Ahsoka, noooo), Spiderman, Rhino, (hold on just had to inform my kids he can be excited without screaming) um, Scorpion I think … Probably others.
Does he seem to want more physical play out just time in with you? Physical - I’ve been doing dance parties with Pandora on a blue tooth speaker or youtube videos, or hide and seek outside (in a safe area if available) that always turns into us fighting invisible bad guys and running around. He got the idea that he really wants to help wash my car but it’s been raining all weekend, he wouldn’t be much actual help of course but my car also isn’t that dirty since it doesn’t get driven much these days.
Not physical, we just “cooked” cookie dough hummus from Go Noodle (they’re also great for dance videos) which he is now snacking on. Sending valentine’s to relatives? We just sent some, thankfully the recipients knew that scribbled circles were supposed to be hearts.
Mostly solidarity though.
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