Activities and games for toddlers 2 – 3 years old

 

Match animals to the map

Scarlett loves this activity because it involves matching and animals. I got her a small world map that has illustrations of animals around the world. Then we take one of our animal figures and see if we can find it on the map so we can place it there. This map is not big, so it easily fits on the table, but because of its size it’s easier to fit smaller animal figures on it.  We have a large collection of Schleich animal figures that we decided to invest in because of their beautiful quality  – but since this map is not too big, only a few of them can fit on the same continent. I’ll probably get a bigger map like this for this activity since we both like it so much.

 

Guess an animal by the tail

This activity was inspired by the book Whose Tail on the Trail , where you have to guess an animal by its tail. I wanted to try a version with our animal figures and it was a hit. Scarlett was sticking animals into the box herself after a while. I made it by taking an old gift box, making cuts radiating from the center in the form of the sun rays in order to fit different size of animals. The other end of the box is open. I stick an animal there, she guesses, and I turn the box the other way for her to check.

 

Caterpillar color and numbers game

We love board games and here’s a simple game we play with our 25 month old Scarlett. Each person gets a board with a caterpillar of certain color. Then we take turns rolling dice, and depending on which color is on the dice, we take a circle of that color and put it on the caterpillar. Then we count how many circles that caterpillar already got. Here’s a free printable of this game.

 

Make story stones

Story stones can be a great addition to your story time. I made story stones for Room on the Broom book. We play by matching rocks  to the pictures on each page of the book.  Another way to play is to recreate a story without a book. And when Scarlett gets a little older I’m thinking to make more story stones for other books, and then all stones can be mixed up in a bag, and we can take rocks in a random order and create our own stories. I made these with stones I got at Michael’s, I painted them with white acrylic first, and then painted art with acrylic paint using miniature brushes, and finished the details with brush pen.

 

Color wheel color sorting

Draw or glue printed color wheel to a box, make openings of the size that fit crafts sticks, and encourage your toddler to insert each craft stick to the matching color section on the wheel. Since Scarlett loves cats, I converted craft sticks into cats to keep her more interested, but this is really optional. Here’s a free download of a color wheel.

 

Drop mice into a cat mouth

I made this activity for Scarlett’s two year birthday but we still play it once in a while. We had a cat theme party, so I got these mice (sold as cat toys), and made a cat from a box by taping a cat face cut out from construction paper. We then took turns dropping mice into cat’s mouth from various distances.

 

Lids and stickers matching game

I finally got to use the lids I’ve been collecting for a while! Here’s a fun and  simple matching game – you will need stickers with either 2 identical or similar images for each animal, paper/poster board, and lids of different sizes. I used poster board which I cut into book size rectangles. Then I placed stickers of different sizes onto the board, leaving enough space around to place lids. Then I placed the matching stickers onto lids. I used some stickers that are identical (like a bunny, pig, owl on the picture) and some stickers that are similar ( like flamingo and frog on the picture). The game can be played in different ways – either place all lids in a bag and have your toddler get them out one by one and place on the matching picture, or play it like a bingo game – each person gets a board and whoever fills their board with lids first is a winner. We used these animal stickers but any stickers that have a pair for each picture would work.

 

Find matching wheels for cars

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. You can print a few copies of car sheets if you have extra pouch caps to make the game longer, and optionally car shapes can be also cut out.

 

Memory cup game

Here’s a fun memory game to play. Arrange small toys under different cups without mixing them up. Various cups can be used. The child needs to remember the order in which cups are arranged. Then you can ask her or him to find a certain toy, so she or he will have to look under each cup, thus remembering which toy is under which cup. Increase the number of cups as the child gets better at remembering the order.

 

Play with Peekaboo Bunny game

I really want to recommend this game for toddlers. It got a few awards for helping to develop child’s logical thinking and early mathematical skills. It comes with cards, a bunny and 3 wooden blocks. Cards show how the bunny needs to be arranged on the blocks, and the child needs to manipulate the wooden block to match the card. The cards are split into levels. At 25 months we play with the easiest level, and it’s nice to see how Scarlett is trying to get it right. I still help her even with the easiest cards, but I see how she’s trying to think and figure it out on her own.

 

Arrange flat marbles in line

For this activity you need flat marbles and a paper with lines of different shape. Show your toddler how to arrange marbles on the line. Scarlett is really into marbles, so after doing this activity, she was busy transferring marbles into different containers for almost half an hour.

 

Draw shapes in a sensory box

We made this sandbox out of cream of wheat – it’s easier to clean up and to get a hold of. I drew some shapes on index cards and showed Scarlett how to recreate the shape in the sand. In our index cards we had a circle, a triangle, a square, a zigzag line, a straight line and a dotted line. Scarlett seemed to be most interested in shapes.

 

Beach sensory play

After drawing shapes on the sand, we converted the sensory bin into beach scene. Some animals came over to relax on the beach, but Scarlett was most interested in scooping the sand (cream of wheat) into a little cup with a spoon, and then transferring it into another cup. We also poured sand into a see-through plastic cup by using a funnel.

 

DIY Patches puzzle

You can make this patches puzzle by printing these files, cutting out squares and showing your toddler how to match the squares to the picture to complete it. There are 3 picture puzzles in the downloadable file.

 

Animal action cards

These animal action cards are a hit with Scarlett. She started to do some of these action when she was about 18 months old, and now at 25 months old she is able to do almost all of them besides puffing her cheeks like a chipmunk. She asks me to play with these cards over and over again. I showed her how to do the actions the first time we played with these and now she does them on her own. It’s fun for the whole family, we clap when she does it right, and she gets to let her energy out in a fun way. The digital version of these cards is available here and a printed version is here.

 

Letters in rice

During these activity we look for foam letters in rice, and then match the letter we found to the letter card. I used flash cards that we had since they have letters on the back of the cards, but you can just draw the letters you put in the rice bin on a piece of paper for matching. Colored or regular rice can be used.

 

Memory game with stickers

You can make a memory game by using stickers and blank cards. Each card has one sticker on the back that looks exactly like one of the stickers on the front. First, you show the back of the card with, for example, a picture of the red fish, then you flip the card, and the child has to point to the picture that was just shown on the back. This game can be made easier when you use a different animal, for example, it’s easier to remember you just saw a cat, and then to pick it among other animals. It can also be made more complicated when you use different colors of the same animal, for example, different color fish, or when you use patterns of an animal skin. We used these animal stickers.

 

Painting on animal toys and then washing them

It’s fun to change up the colors of animal toys – you can make a pink crocodile and a yellow elephant. I taped a big piece of paper to the table, and we started painting on our animal toys. We used regular finger paint. After we were done painting, we started washing those animals in a bucket full of soapy water. We used old toothbrushes to wash off paint from those animals and it turned out to be a fun and creative activity.

 

Color/walking frogs game

This game was inspired by the Snail’s Race Game and is great for kids 2.5+ years. Here’s our DIY version. We used 3 jumping frogs of different colors and placed round stickers of matching color on a sheet of paper to make a road for each frog. At the end of each road I put a house for each frog where it’s trying to get to (house can be drawn on the paper). The game is played by taking turns to roll a dice with colors, and moving a frog of that color one step closer to a house.

 

Painting with coffee art stencils

Check out this Coffee Decorating Stencils Set, it includes a bunch of super cute stencils that can be used for art projects with toddlers too. We just place them on paper, paint over and get cute art. If you are a coffee lover –  it’s a must have, you can sprinkle some cocoa on top of one of this stencils to get a super cute coffee results. I love this one.

 

Magnetic face

Cut out face parts out of construction paper, and stick them to a Magnetic Adhesive Sheet. Cut out shapes out of magnetic sheet and build a face! I made eye pupil and eye iris separate, but it can all be done as one piece, if you don’t want small magnetic parts. You can stick parts on a magnetic board or just on top of the round face shape.

 

 

Wrapping paper craft

Here’s an example of a wrapping paper with our designs. The back of any regular wrapping paper can be used for this. We also used this fingerpaint set which includes a great sturdy paper and 3 paint tubes. We did some thumb stamping, and ink pads are perfect for this. After Scarlett did the stamping, I drew little decorative details to thumb prints. Then we added sparkly lines with glitter glue, and painted polka dots with finger paint and sponge brushes. Wrapping paper can be used to wrap gifts for any occasion and you get to recycle your toddler’s art.

 

Counting with candles

There are 2 things that Scarlett loves the most – cupcakes and birthdays. We seem to pretend it’s her birthday here almost every day – she finds something that looks remotely like a cake and we sing a Happy Birthday song to her. So I decided to incorporate counting into this cupcake play. We made and decorated cupcakes, and then inserted different number of candles into each one. Yes, we sang happy birthday for each cupcake, counted the candles, and then I lit the candles and she blew them out.

 

DIY Paper house for pretend play

I made a foldable paper house for Scarlett to play with, and it is super convenient for our small New York apartment. I made it by drawing a living room, a bedroom, a bathroom and a kitchen on legal size paper sheets, and by gluing them together after. I used stickers to decorate the rooms and it came out pretty cute. We started off by playing with Little People figures but since Scarlett is obsessed with cats, they were replaced with cats in this house 🙂

 

Water beads volcano

I waited for a while to introduce water beads to Scarlett. Since she’s almost 3 now, and doesn’t put anything in her mouth anymore, I decided it’s time to add water beads into our play. Besides doing a sensory play with these colorful water beads, we also did this fun volcano. All you need for it is water, water beads and regular Alka-Seltzer Tablets. Scarlett enjoyed scooping beads into the jar first, and then dropping alka seltzer tablets in the water to watch the eruption.

 

 

 

Spying for numbers

Dooes your toddler like discovering? How about discovering numbers in drawings? I made this magnifier glass by taking a clear file cover, and drawing with a permanent marker over it to turn it into a dark green color. Then I drew pictures of animals with a lighter color green, and hid a number inside each one with a darker green. When you hover over the drawing of an animal, you see a number very clearly, and the lighter drawing almost disappears. Magic!

 

Monster doodles

I found these awesome Monster Doodles Activity Cards that I would like to recommend. The package comes with 50 wipe-clean cards with illustrations of monsters that your child has to finish. We love this activity, it develops imagination and drawing skills, and also is super portable for being on the road.

 

Playdough Gruffalo

Reading is fun, but it’s also fun to recreate some of our favorite characters. Here we made a Gruffalo with playdough, some pasta pieces, and beads. It’s great for child’s imagination, and creativity, reinforcing reading and sensory play.

 

Egg Carton Cars

 We had this egg carton saved for a while so we decided to transform it into cars 🚗🌟First, we cut the egg carton compartments out, and painted on them.🌈✨💙 Then came the fun part — decorating. We used large buttons, googly eyes, stickers, markers, and feathers. 🌟🚗🎉  We attached the strings to some of the cars, and my toddler got really excited to pull the cars around. 🎈🌈 These DIY toys inspire creativity and fine motor skills. It’s a win-win for both fun and development! 👧👦🎉

 

Frozen Dino Egg Excavation

Imagine the thrill of uncovering long-lost dinosaurs trapped in ice. We found this activity that keeps a toddler and a 7-year-old entertained.🌟🦕 ❄️ I loved this idea of making the frozen eggs inside the balloons, the ice comes out in perfect egg shapes. So begin by placing a dinosaur toy inside a balloon. Then fill it with water, pop it into the freezer, and let the magic happen overnight. The next day, you’ll have your very own frozen dino eggs waiting to be excavated! ❄️🦖 🔍🌍 As the ice starts to melt, grab your excavation tools like spoons, droppers, syringes, small cups, and paintbrushes and carefully chip away at the ice to reveal the hidden dinosaurs.