Get ready moms and dads! Your home is about to be invaded by crayons, tinsel and glitter glue.
You’re about to be taken back to your childhood with the smell of playdough, the calm that coloring brings, the feel of dried glue in your fingers.
With your baby now turning 2 years old, she should be ready to do many of the activities for toddlers on this page. But before the long list, here are some tips and ideas on how to fill your days with a toddler at home.
- Read a book together.
- Have toys your child can play with by himself for a few minutes. Have a few different discovery boxes at hand. Toddlers are naturally curious and will usually spend a good amount of time at a new activity (as long as they know you’re around).
- Resist the temptation to interfere. Give them time every day to discover and explore things by themselves (of course, you will still need to watch them or, at least, do some household chore in the same room)
- Rotate toys. This way, they will feel like they’re playing with something new every day.
- It’s handy to have the following things around
- playdough/cloud dough/ moon dough
- craft kit
- sensory bins
- sand pit
- water station
- Give your toddler time to be alone in his/her own thoughts.
- Listed below are things that toddlers usually like to do.
You can easily tailor activities, toys and games based on the interest and developmental milestones of this age.- throw balls
- kick balls
- go up and down the stairs
- take things apart and put them together
- screw and unscrew lids
- play fantasy games
- sing
- dance
- learna using hands and eyes
- learning simple words
- begins to scribbles, first with lines and then circles
- likes to string large beads
- a very wild imagination and love pretend play with dolls, cars, etc.
- will love putting simple puzzles together
- learn to count
- pretend play with grown up toys like mobile phones, cooking pans, clothes, bags,
- sorting things
- putting things into containers
- stacking things up
- likes making towers
- sorts shapes
- loves boxes – you can never have enough empty boxes at this age.
Toddler Activities To Improve Gross Motor Development
Contents
It’s best to work on children’s gross motor skills by going outside and get them moving. The fresh air is good for them and it’s often much easier to entertain children in the open air than it is in a closed environment.
However, I know that there are many times when going outside is not possible. So most of the activities listed here can be done in the comfort of your very own living room.
Rolling A ball / Catching A Balloon – This is the easiest thing you can do indoors with a toddler. Enjoy the moment. When they grow older and stronger, you wouldn’t want an indoor ball game to take place then.
Bean Bag Toss – Throwing bean bags is another activity toddlers enjoy. The younger toddler can start by “shooting” a bean bag into a nearby bucket or basin. As they grow older, try to make the holes smaller and establish some rules on how to win the game.
You can easily >make your own bean bags if you are so inclined.
Here are some bean bag game ideas:
- Leigh Laurel Studios: With instructions on how to make your very own washable bean bags
- Grinning Cheek to Cheek: an easy DIY activity for a bean bag toss game. You can even get the kids to help you make it as well.
- In Lieu of Preschool: Do it with cans. Just knock ’em down.
Bubbles – Many kids love the idea of “flying” bubbles. Toddlers may not be able to blow at this time yet, but you can do it for them and get them to pop it. This can be loads of fun
(Tip: and if you’ve had enough of the blowing, you can use an electric fan and just put the wand in front of it – or get a bubble blower.)
Sing And Dance – Who can resist a good dance song?
Below is a playlist of some of the best toddler exercise dance and song combination. Before you know it, your child will be asking to do the exercise every morning. A great way to start the day and to start the exercise habit young.
You can also use this time as a teaching moment on different parts of the body.
Carrying Things From One Place To Another – Children love this especially when you pretend that they’re helping you with the chores. We used to let our son carry bottles of drinking water. He was freakily strong as a toddler.
Jump On Paper Plates: Put paper plates from one end of the room to another. Pretend that there are crocodiles in a river and you need to get to the other side. The paper plates are little islands that you can step on.
Rolling: Yes, rolling. On the floor, at the park, in the backyard. Not always an easy task especially for the little ones. Start rolling from side to side and then do a full roll.
Cleaning The House: Children at this stage like to copy the things you do. Give them a broom and a dustpan and they will happily while the time away pretending to do some cleaning. It’s good exercise and they think they’re playing too.
Mosquito fly Swat Game: Put 2 or three numbers on separate pieces of paper. Stick them onto a wall. Call out the number and get your child to run and hit the correct number using the fly swat.
Tip: Don’t have too many choices at a time especially for young toddlers. Instead of numbers, you can also use letters or shapes, parts of the body or even faces of people they know.
Obstacle Course: This can be either an indoor or outdoor game.
Ideas for an indoor course:
- use pillows as stepping stones
- big boxes opened at both ends as tunnels
- tables to go under in
- small chair to climb up on
- a masking tape on the floor as a “balance beam”
Some More Obstacle Course Ideas.
Mosquito fly Swat Game: Put 2 or three numbers on separate pieces of paper. Stick them onto a wall. Call out the number and get your child to run and hit the correct number using the fly swat.
Tip: Don’t have too many choices at a time specially for young toddlers. Instead of numbers, you can also use letters or shapes, parts of the body or even faces of people they know.
Outdoor Games
Sponge Water Relay: Have a bucket full of water with sponges in it. Now get your child to transfer the water to another bucket a couple metres away. A good 15-minute activity. Even longer for some kids. Yay for you.
Water Run: Obviously, an outdoor activity. Fill a plastic cup with water. Then get your child to run from one place to another point as fast as he can. If he gets to the end point still with water in his cup, he “wins”.
Activities For Toddlers to Develop Fine Motor skills
Fine motor skills or the ability to manipulate the small muscles in our hands is an essential skill for both physical and mental development.
Amruta Rum of Mumma Diaries shows in the video below how easily we can encourage toddlers to practice this valued skill using objects that you probably already have at home.
Some of the things she uses includes:
- putting pipe cleaners into a kitchen colander
- hanging keys in a keyholder
- putting straws inside a toothbrush holder
- putting tokens in a piggy bank
- and many more
Now here’s a playlist of fine motor skills activities for toddlers so you’ll never run out of ideas. There are over 7 videos to watch on this one with different activities to do, so enjoy!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxZgnnMiLwM&list=PLIZPUumwj1NzwYu4E1i597UZsxzwKgx_v
And for those of you who prefer pictures, here are some more ideas of the ones that I like.
- Mess For Less Clothespin Math: Hit two birds with one stone with this math clothespin activity for toddlers.
- My Merry Messy Life: Transfering water from one container to another using a sponge. You can also use bottle caps, spoons
- It’s On My To Do List: Here’s a good activity for young toddlers. They learn about shapes while practicing their hand/finger muscles.
- Lessons Learn Journal: Why limit your children to paint brushes when you can experiment with other materials? This activity not only practices fine motor skills but exercise children’s creativity and imagination as well.
- Engaging Toddler Activities: What I like most about geoboards is that you can easily tailor it to whatever age your child is. As they get older, children can make more complex shapes.
- Little Bins For Little Hands: This is only one of the many activities featured on this page. I especially like this paper clip one as it’s so easy and can be easily recreated at home too.
- This Mummas Life: Here’s another one that doesn’t need a lot of preparation and can be just as fun for kids. Some could even stay quite for a long time just doing this activity. You can also use a colander or pretty much anything else with a hole big enough for a straw to get in.
Note: Remember that many of these activities use small materials so you will need to be present all the time especially for children who still like to put things in their mouth.
For Building And Taking Things Apart
Taking things apart and building things is important in a toddler’s development.
They’re curious and this is part of the way they learn. But it isn’t always an easy toddler milestone to live with especially when they destroy a rather expensive or precious toy.
My rule is if there’s anything you don’t want to be broken by an inquisitive child at this age, then don’t put it anywhere within his/her grasp. Or at least let him play with it only when you are vigilantly watching with your eagle eyes
At the same time, encourage this curiosity by providing her with things she can break without you or another kid feeling upset about it.
Here are some things you can give him
- papers to rip up
- boxes to open and close
- toys to screw and unscrew
- plastic bottles to open and close
- an old typewriter can go a very long way.
- If you have any broken appliances that are safe for kids to tinker with, so much the better (reminder, if the appliance has a plug attach to it, always watch your child as he will try to plug it in at some point)
The kid who likes to take things apart usually also likes to put things together too. So offer building toys like Magna-tiles or Duplo.
Note: You may soon discover that even with all these toys you’ve given him/her, he will still be drawn to appliances you would really rather not want him to be tinkering with. I once caught my son trying to take off the cover of the light switch in his bedroom with a Philips screwdriver.
If you have an old typewriter, this is the time to put it to good use. Young kids love bashing them, tinkering with the keys and wondering what in the world is going on with the machine.
Battat take apart toys are also a great toy to have.
Sandpit
Children love sandpit. Mine spent many summer days in the sand getting mucky, building castles, digging and the like.
In lieu of sand, you can use other materials as well such as beans, rice, oatmeal, corn, ground corn (son loved this)
Water Station
This can be as fancy as the many water station tables you can buy or just a basin with shallow water in it.
Add in some cups, water wheels, and other containers.
Add bubbles for variety.
Add food color to make it look different.
Other accessories: sponge, a doll or car to clean, clothes to wash, spray bottle
Playdough
Again, this is one of those toys that both young and older kids like to play with.
We have made a collection of the best home playdough recipes. Make a batch at home and use them as needed.
Arts and Crafts
Here’s our resource of dozens of toddler crafts that you can easily do at home.
Sensory Bins
Children learn much about the world through their senses. This is why they like to put things in their mouth, why they love playing hide and seek, and why feeling different textures brighten them up.
As you probably know, there are more connections between your hands and your brain than any other part of your body.
This is why touching, feeling, squeezing are all very important for a young child. It is the way he learns about the world.
For this reason having sensory bins at home is probably one of the best things you can provide for your child.
The good news is that they can be easily made at very little cost and toddlers love them so much they can spend a lot of time just sitting there enjoying the sensation
(warning — this can be potentially very messy — but then again, when it comes to toddlers, it seems that the messier it is, the more fun the activity is)
Here are some ideas to get you started:
The quickest way to do this is to use some things in the kitchen that your child doesn’t always get the chance to hold.
Some kitchen ideas: ground corn, rice, cooked spaghetti, beans, jelly
Here’s what you can do with spaghetti. Color them. Don’t expect them to look as neat and organized as this after your child has played with it though. Get the details at Play At Home Mom
A theme: If you’re a bit more organized than me, you might want a themed sensory bin table such as the Swamp Sensory Tub by Allison from No Time For Flashcards,
Get Ideas from Nature: Nature – the original sensory bin. There’s the feel of water on one’s feet. Bird sounds. The sound of quiet in a forest. Mud. Dry leaves. Green grass. Rough sticks. Smooth stones.