Here’s a fun activity we tried – creating a road maze! All you need is some masking tape. The kids taped the masking tape all over the floor, making roads that intersect and form a fun maze. You can even add buildings along the sides of the roads. And, of course, we had cars driving through the maze. It was a blast!
Instead of using the usual shape cutters, we decided to switch things up and create some adorable bugs. My son had a blast molding play dough into bugs of all shapes and sizes, using items like straw pieces, wooden hearts, large googly eyes, and pipe cleaners to add unique details. I was asked to bring a toddler craft to my son’s daycare, so I immediately thought of this craft since it’s not messy and easy to make. It’s great for toddler birthday parties too.
Bath time isn’t just about getting clean; it’s an opportunity for imaginative play, sensory exploration, and quality bonding with your child. We wanted to add some excitement to our bath time and tried out some of these bath play ideas.
First, we decided to add the fun of a ball pit right into our bathtub. We took colorful plastic balls to transform bath time into a playful adventure. I also set up a small bucket at one corner of the tub and showed my son how to aim and toss the balls into the bucket, celebrating with cheers and applause every time he scored. This interactive and engaging activity not only adds an element of fun to bath time but also improves hand-eye coordination and gross motor skills.
I’ve been saving those pouch caps for a while now, thinking that I’ll use them for the kids’ activities someday. Here are the activities that we came up with so far, I’ll be adding more activities to this post as we go.
You can download these printable cars for this game. Since my son is obsessed with cars, the first activity we did was matching the color of the wheels to the color of the car.
Spending time outdoors with your toddler is a great way to break the monotony of your everyday routine. Kids get more physical activity and encounter new things that help them learn more about the world.
An article from Nature Sustainability found that children exposed to green spaces, like parks or the woods, are actually benefitting developmentally as well. Kids who frequently spent time outdoors scored higher for cognitive development and were 17% less likely to experience emotional and behavioral risks.
Of course, not all kids enjoy being outside, especially in the age of TV and smartphones. Whether you’re having trouble keeping your child entertained outdoors or simply want to find more exciting ways to experience being outside, some of these ideas can help.
My daughter loves pretend play, and even if we don’t bring any toys with us outdoors, there are always nature items that can be used for pretend play. Sticks, rocks, leaves, and pine cones can be used to make pretend food. My daughter likes to create a large pretend meal with nature items: she likes to make a soup with water and grass (if water is available nearby), a sandwich (two rocks with grass in between), and always a dessert (sand, dirt, leaves, plants, rocks). If we have any toys with us, we like to feed this food to them, otherwise, we pretend to feed each other.
Continue reading “Fun Ideas To Help Your Toddler Spend More Time Outdoors”
We made this game by gluing wipes lids to a cardstock. I placed stickers under each lid, and a feather under one random lid. When Stone opens each lid, we get to learn the name of the object on the sticker, and if he finds a feather he gets a tickle attack with that feather 😄
My daughter is a really picky eater. We’ve been going to occupational therapy with her to help with her eating and they played a lot of games with food there. It inspired me to put together a list of games we play with food, which have successfully helped my daughter to either eat more or to try new foods.
Scarlett helped me to pick foods that she was willing to use for this game. We arranged them on a plate, blindfolded her, and had her guess the food by tasting it. We used a carrot, a grape, a raspberry, a piece of broccoli, a piece of cheese, a walnut, a piece of a cracker, a blueberry, a pistachio, and a piece of a pretzel stick. In the middle of the plate, we put a chocolate cookie for a prize if she guesses all the items. Scarlett had a lot of fun playing this game and I was happy I got some fruits and nuts in her.
I wanted to share some of our favorite development promoting games and toys that are also fun to play with. I did research to find some of these earlier, and only sharing the ones that Scarlett really enjoys playing with.
The front cover of this workbook doesn’t do it justice, you can preview some pages on amazon to see how colorful the pictures are. It has lots of activities for little kids. Some activities are almost too easy for a 2 year old, but there are enough activities there to keep a child entertained for a while – there are colorful stickers that need to be placed in certain spots, tracing lines, finding objects, matching colors and shapes, fun games – and all to improve problem solving skills for kids. There are lots of other workbooks by Gakken, and I highly recommend using them.
Continue reading “Educational and fun gift ideas for 2 year olds. Our favorite games and toys.”
This year we made an advent calendar in the form of a Christmas village. We used Advent Calendar Kit
Continue reading “Advent Calendar. Christmas Village. Advent activities.”
I recently discovered a fascinating educational method by Makoto Shichida, that focuses on the development of the child’s right brain. I’ve been overwhelmed with interesting information and started to apply it to our activities with my toddler right away. It’s not easy to find detailed information about his method online, and his books in English are only available from Japan. So I ordered his book – if anybody is interested it’s here or you can read my summary below. Besides reading the book, I gathered information from parents whose kids went to Shichida schools in Asia, so here is a recap of what I learned and how we implement it with our 19-month-old.
As you know, left brain controls things like logic, written and spoken languages, scientific ability and number skills. The Shichida method targets the development of the right brain which is responsible for the photographic memory ability, computer-like calculation ability, intuition and creative imagination. All these skills can be acquired by doing exercises that stimulate the right brain. The idea of my child having these skills sounds very exciting to me, considering that I have a very bad memory. If I can help my child develop even some of these skills, I would consider myself an accomplished parent. Continue reading “Shichida method overview. Plan of activities for all ages. Our adaptation for 18-24 month olds.”
