Toddlers love moving around rather than being confined to a particular place. Ensure that the activities you give them are free for exploration and have a broad area for creativity and imagination. It is fine if your kid colours the water in his/her drawing book green. Learning should be fun more than seem like a task. Kids can get messy and that’s okay. Give them the required materials and minimal instructions and let them find their way through it.
Some interesting and easy to do toddler activities that will keep your child occupied and enable easier learning process are mentioned below:
Activities for toddlers at home: 10 Parent-toddler home activities
Activity 1: Draw your song
Materials required:
Crayons/colour pencils/ sketch pens and paper.
Pictorially represent the first line of a song/rhyme (eg: Jack and Jill went up the hill) to your child on a piece of paper and ask him/her to draw his/her own interpretation of the next few lines until the last line.
Skills:
Creativity, imagination, understanding
Activity 2: Play dough Shape learning
Materials required:
Dough, different shaped objects (glass, square-shaped box or lid, star-shaped cookie cutter, etc)
knead some all-purpose flour mixed with water( or you can engage your child to have fun while doing the same). Flatten the dough by rolling it out. Cut out shapes from the flattened dough and keep them aside. You can add cinnamon powder or any other scent to the dough if necessary. This also improves the olfactory senses of your child.
On a separate sheet of paper, draw the various shapes and label them with their respective names. Ask your child to match the cut-out shapes placed on the sheet of paper by placing them on spaces in the dough.
Skills:
Fine motor skills, tactile exploration, understanding the concept of shapes, sizes and objects
Activity 3: Food Fun Art
Materials required:
Colourful cut vegetables/fruits, a large plate and any other suitable ingredients
Sit with your child and create art using various ingredients such as beetroots to depict lips, carrot as the nose for a snowman, butter cubes as tiny sofas, etc. To add to the experience, you can even let your child create stories and depict them within the space on the plate.
Skills:
Imagination, creativity, story-creation, tactile exploration, spatial knowledge
Activity 4: Magical Ball
Materials Required:
A ball, three cups
Place the ball on a surface and place three opaque cups, with one of them covering the ball. Shuffle the cups and ask your child to find the cup that has the ball.
Skills:
Concentration, increased awareness, understanding of object permanence
Explore: Popular Blogs
Activity 5: Matching of objects
Materials required:
4 coloured circles/ 4 different coloured bowls or tiny buckets, various carefully chosen safe objects matching the 4 colours respectively
Place the four circles/ chosen containers on one side and the objects on the other side. Ensure that the objects are jumbled up and not separated according to the distinction of colour. Then ask your child to place objects of a particular colour in the circles or containers that match the same. Similarly, instruct him/her to segregate objects of the same colour and place them in their respective circles/containers.
This will enable the child to be occupied and have fun figuring out the difference while you are busy!
Skills:
Colour and object distinction, concepts of similarity and differences, exploration
Activity 6: Painting Patterns
Materials Required:
Paints, a sheet of paper, daily objects such as a bottle cap, leaves, shoe soles and small slices of carrot, lady’s finger or any other vegetable/fruit
Give your little one the objects you have chosen and sit back and watch them as they dip it in paint to create prints and get amazed with the different patterns on paper. This will fascinate them and help them learn the beauty of everyday things.
Skills:
Appreciation of beauty and excellence, creativity, exploration and keen observation skill.
Activity 7: Twist the story
Materials Required:
Your child’s favourite story book
Read out your kid’s favourite story and stop at the crucial point where the plot takes a turn. Then ask your child to add his own perception to the story and twist the story in any manner he/she would like to. Sit with them and keenly listen to their version of it.
Skills:
Imagination and creativity, Brainstorming, understanding and improvisation skills.
Explore: Worksheets
Matching Shapes Worksheets (18-24 months)
Activity 8: Guess what
Materials Required:
A variety of sensory objects such as a half cut lemon, salt, sugar, piece of wood, soft toy/ball, etc. and a long piece of cloth
Place the different items on a table and blindfold your child. Then let your child feel each object and the challenge is to guess all the items on the table.
This is definitely a common yet exciting and challenging task that your little one is sure to enjoy.
Skills:
Sensory and motor skills, sensitivity, heightened awareness, concentration
Activity 9: Draw the tail
Materials required:
A long piece of cloth, writing materials and a sheet of paper
Draw a rough outline of an elephant on a sheet of paper without the tail. Blindfold your child and ask him/her to draw the tail on the elephant as appropriately as they can. Show them the picture before blindfolding them in order to ensure that they have a rough mental image of it.
Skills:
Accuracy, memory
Activity 10: Obstacle lane
Materials Required:
Tape, safe objects that can act as obstacles
Stick tape on the floor in different paths and place obstacles along them and instruct them to reach the end point by avoiding all the obstacles and walking only on the tape. As an added incentive, you can place a small reward at the end point!
Skills:
Spatial awareness, balance.
We hope you like our blog on Activities for toddlers at home. If you know some more fun and engaging toddler activities, kindly comment in the commenting section below and share with other parents.