Weekly Toddler Activities - Page 6

[iHar2003]

question

HI Everybody,

I'm new to the site and am really glad to meet all of you!
My question on this fun topic is this: Any ideas on how to keep my 20 mo. old from "getting into" the more arts and crafty ideas: those which involve paint/water etc. I'm dying to try some of your creative suggestions with my dd (3) but my ds (20 mo) is only too eager to get his hands on the flour and sprinkle it EVERYWHERE = more work than fun for me )-:

thank you!

[grumo]

I have come across the mother lode of simple activities for kids of all ages. Check out the old newsletters at Magical Childhood.

The most current newsletter includes this link, http://www.coping.org/earlyin/sensory/heavyactiviti.htm with activities for kids with manic energy that prevents them from settling down. Scroll past the stuff for Teachers to the section for Parents.

[fraya]

After grumo's post, this one seem absolutely pathetic, but here goes:

One thing my two-year-old son has been enjoying is balloons. Caveat: Ballons are a suffocation danger! The package says that kids under 5 should not play with them. We play with them only under close supervision and keep them out of reach at all other times, but it still makes me nervous. And it might make you even more nervous, in which case this idea is not for you!

What my son enjoys is having us blow them up and then letting them fly around the room. Or we hand them to him and he plays with them -- lets air out, makes them squeak, lets them fly. There are lots of other games we play, too, like if he's naked, I spurt air at his belly or his back or his neck.

He loves it when they pop, but I hate it! So watch for the spit accumulating on the inside (yuck!) and for puckering in the balloon (an indication it's losing elasticity). Plus, I never blow it full of air, just incase!

We also play 'pretend ballon' where one of us pretends to blow up the balloon and then we decide what we'll do with it (usually "let it fly!" with the fun of sound effects, dancing heads, watching it bounce off of us, or running to catch it.

My husband also picked up some water balloons which we have yet to try. All of those little pieces of suffocation material (from so many popped balloons) make me nervous!

[G&K]

The Humming Game

I know this is late, but I just found this incredible thread! I can only think of one new thing to add right now. When DD was about 22 months we were sitting at the kitchen table after dinner. My dad (who had spent way too much time with us obviously ) started humming some kids song without even noticig he was doing it- I think it was Happpy and You Know It. DD shouted "I know that song!" and a new game was born. We must have spent almost an hour at the table taking turns humming songs for her to guess. Then she would try to hum one for us to guess and say "Do you know this one?"

It was fun for her, especially since she was so good at figuring them out - we would be genuinely surprised and impressed and she loved that! It was also fun for us because we had to think so hard about new songs to hum - it almost became a competition about who could come up with something different after a while. Luckily, DD loves music and is great at remembering songs, so we had a big library of music to pick from.

Thanks for all these ideas. We just went to the craft store to get some new paintbrushes and we played "I Spy" on the way there

[kimbalicious]

I love this thread! I have been utilizing some the ideas for quite awhile May I add to the water fun.... car washing! DS (19 mo) and I washed my car (using vinegar and water only) and played with the hose -- much fun!

Also I stumbled across a couple of books that have some neat ideas (and some I've already seen posted): Games to Play with your Two Year Olds and Games to Play with your Toddler. Both are by Jackie Silberg. I found them at the Library where I work so see if you can't check them out.

I'll try and post some of the more unique ideas when I get a free moment!

[Breathe]

Hi Everyone,

I just wanted to chime in and thank some of you newcomers for "waking" this thread again . . . I haven't looked at it in quite some time, but have just realized that many of the activities that seemed too old for my ds back in March are now *perfect* for his developmental level. It's like Christmas morning all over again!

Two new ideas which have recently evolved from some of these activities:

Remember the activity where you put masking tape on the kitchen floor? Kids can jump over it, drive cars on it like roads, sweep objects into and out of lines and shapes, etc. Yesterday I discovered that ds LOVES to help me peel it up when we're done, and it's a fabulous fine motor activity. Also took him long enough that I got a whole salad made!

And the rice table? Now ds is old enough to enjoy experimenting with the different sounds made when rice is poured, sprinkled, etc onto different materials, like plastic, metal, paper, the vinyl tablecloth underneath (and yes, the floor). So now the rice table is new again!

One other idea: See the link at the bottom of this page that says "Show Printable Version"? If you click on it, then highlight the entire document, copy it, and paste it into a word document, it's a pretty quick and easy way to make yourself a hard copy of these ideas. I then went thru and deleted the extraneous comments, and if I find the time, I'd like to sort the activities, too. So if you did this for both of the activity threads (see the first post of this thread for a link) you could make yourself a pretty thick notebook of ideas which are MDC tried and true!

edited to add: If you do the "show printable version" thing, note that it will only convert one page of the thread at a time.

[SueZVudu]

Hi, everyone. I'd just like to add another activity I came up with today in the backyard. Every time I take DD (17 months old) for a walk, she picks up leaves, flowers, acorns, whatever she finds on the sidewalk or pathway. Up until now, I've been just dropping them back into the grass, but today I decided to let her go on a Mother Nature's Easter Egg Hunt. We took a small wood basket with a cloth liner into the backyard, and I encouraged her to put her findings into the basket. We took our discoveries back into the house, and now she's amusing herself with the acorns. I'm pressing the leaves so that we can use them for crafts later -- maybe a set of seasonal, laminated placemats, a wreath, a table centerpiece, etc. She enjoys this so much that I'm going to take the basket with me on all our nature walks (making sure, of course, that she doesn't pull up any endangered orchids and such!) Next time, I want to find a good place to pick up pretty, smooth rocks that we can save for sorting and counting activities. Just wanted to share!

I've been enjoying a lot of these activities, and I'm hoping someone else will continue to add to them, too!

[Megs Mom]

Hi, SueZ, congrats on the new project baking! Good to read you!

[nuggetsmom]

Thought of something too the other ay

Cut pictures of lot of things from magazines and paste them on cardboard if you want. Then throw them in a box and fish them out one by one while making up a story. DD LOVES this. It can get hard to be creative enough to tie some things in. Anyway, we got the story tiles for her birhtday, but I thought you could make them too. They could be really cool. SO I might cut pictures out and make more after all.

[Sara Mama]

Contact Paper Collages

When my first son was 2 he loved it...then I ran out of clear contact paper, but at 3, I'd bet he'd still love it!

You need
two pieces of clear contact paper
tape to tape them down
flat stuff to sandwich between:
leaves
pieces of tissue paper (really pretty when hung in the window)
feathers
foamy craft pieces
photos
magazine cut outs
etc.

Remove the backing off of one piece
tape it to the wall, floor, table etc
turn your munchkin loose with a bucket/bowl of stuff to press on it.
When (s)he is done, cover it with the other piece of contact paper

Voila! You have a wonderful collage that can be hung in the window or used to protect a table top or cut to be placemat etc....

[Sara Mama]

oops

OOps, double post!

[sleepies]

when do i need to post?

you want it in November? or is it this week.?
or Janurary.

im lost on the dates, but would love to post more activities.

[scoutycat]

a few new ideas...

just discovered this thread, as we only just hit the toddler stage (dd is 13 mos). I've got a few ideas I didn't see up here -
1) those little post-it note pads are a blast for little guys, like stickers but repositionable and easy to clean!
2) Spagetti painting - mix leftover spagetti with glue and tempre or food colouring. Smoosh and play on a pice of paper, let dry.
3)Nothing beats a rousing game of where's baby? 'hide' under a sheet or towel or what ever and pretend to be lost; or hide baby under the towel and look for her; or 'hide' her on your shoulders and 'forget she's there - look in ridiculous places, like the cutlery drawer, the pot on the stove, the fridge, under the cushions on the couch. Warning - hang on to the kid!!! serious giggling impedes their ability to hang on!!!
4) Household chores, like emptying the dryer, sorting socks, washing the baseboards, swiffering (the handle comes apart, so you can make it baby size), etc. are taken very seriously by dd lol Such a help :P and funny to watch her
5) Raisins in a box - well, more a snack than an activity, I guess, but dd loves these! digging the rasins out, playing with the box after (squishing, blowing on it, etc), putting cheerios in it and diggin or dumping them - the mini boxes are just little enough to be a challenge, but not small enough to be frustrating.
6)Stickers - dd thinks its funny when I put a sticker on her or on me, fun to peel off and stick on again
7) Fridge magnet friends - I take old pictures or ones I've printed out and use double sided tape to stick them to those advertizing magnets everyone hands out. Dd especially likes them when she's missing someone; tends to go to her dad's or grandma's pic, points and says 'da-da' or 'ga-ga?' and then takes the magnet and carries it with her.
8) Frozen juice can lids - these are great, no sharp edges and a lip on them. We've used them to glue pictures to and make 'memory' games, painted them to become 'magic coins' to use in treasure hunts, counting and sorting games; little ones like putting them in and out of jars or bowls, etc.

Anyway, I should be in bed - jen

[mothermagic]

Oh my goodness.. there is so much to read here! I'd like to join this group. I have to sit down and read past page one, but this is great. I was starting to run out of things to do with my cabin-feverish two year old twins.

I have one activity that the kids loved almost TOO much. While I was busy washing dishes or cooking, I'd let them play with bubbles. at the time, the boys were between 20-24 months old. They'd still love it now, at two and a half.

I put a little bit of mild dish detergent or baby bubble bath in a big plastic basin, turn the water on full-blast, and wait till it all filled up with bubbles. Then I'd just stick my arm in there sideways and dump out as much water as i could, leaving a huge pile of bubbles behind. I put this bucket of bubbles on the kitchen floor on top of a big towel and let the boys play in it. The would throw them up in the air, dunp them on the floor, mop them up with towels, slide around on their knees, blow them off their arms, plop them on their heads, giggle and laugh and have a gay old time. And when they lost interest I would just take up the bubbles and dump them, stick my foot on the big towels and do a quick sweep of the floor to dry it off. Clean floor!

Another one we do is play with tongues. The kind of kitchen tongue that are two lng, straight, separate prongs with squarish endings that aren't held together with a spring, just a scissor-like rivet in the middle. You know the kind? They kind of look like forceps? Well the kids dig these out and go around the house picking up everything with them... balls, especially. Put out a lot of little objects and watch them use this tool to pick them up. Hours of fun. And the tongues are cheap. You can get as many as you have children at a thrift store for next to nothing.

Looking forward to continuing with this great thread.

Mothermagic
Mom to 2 1/2 yr old twin boys and due with number three DAYS ago. siiiiigh.

[IdentityCrisisMama]

I couldn’t remember ONE of these great ideas in the pinch of desperately looking for some new thing for a bored Toddler. I’m thinking I will format these ideas and those from the other web-sites into a “daily” or check-off type chart.

Would this be interesting to anyone? If so, it may provide me with some additional inspiration…not that my DC isn’t inspiration enough!

I wonder if I need to ask permission for anyone’s ideas? It just occurred to me…would that be an issue? I don’t think I have it in me to credit everyone and I would probably simplify some of the lengthy tips. Would this be okay?

[Breathe]

I've tried to do the same thing, ICMama, but never seem to have the time to commit to it. If you'd be willing to split the task, maybe we could work together to post the ideas into some kind of Word document.

In fact, would anyone else want to chip in?

If a couple of people would take responsiblity for cutting and pasting and then editing a chunk of ideas, we could then get together over email to share a master document with all the activities. If we're really ambitious, we could even sort them.

(And I doubt we need to worry about crediting people -- I know a lot of the ideas came from other sources, anyway. It's probably only a problem if we tried to publish this as a book!)

I'd be happy to spearhead the project. Anybody else interested? (IdentityCrisisMama, Did I just run right over your idea, or would this be helpful to you, too?)

El

[IdentityCrisisMama]

Sounds great! Do you have ideas as to how we could split this up? I would love to start at the Magical Parenting site.

[Breathe]

That would be great if you could start there . . . do you think you can cover that site by yourself? Then if anyone else offers to help, we could split up the many, many pages of this thread and the thread that preceeded it (now OVER a year old!!).

When I started this once before, I copied and pasted the ideas into a simple word doc. I tried to give each activity a descriptive title, like "Kitchen Bubble Play" or "Indoor Balance Beam", followed by a brief description. And I agree with you completely that many of the details can be edited out . . . like personal comments or too much description. Really all we need is enough description so someone could replicate the activity.

I don't think sorting the activites into type is doable unless several more people volunteer to chip in -- it slowed me down a lot when I tried to do it myself.

So you wanna take a stab at the Magical Child site? That would be awesome! (Then PM me or come back here to check in -- no rush.)

Let's see if we get any more offers of help . . .

Thanks!
Eleanor

[grumo]

Are you refering to A Magical Childhood? I suspect Alicia would appreciate being asked. After all, her site does ask that people not steal her stuff.

edited: Wow! I just read my post, and boy it comes off really snarky. Sorry. I intended a much lighter tone. I don't mean to imply that compling this stuff, even including ideas from her website, is stealing, just that we should throw a courtesy request her way.

[pinky]

Hey, I'd be glad to help.

I might even have a few of my own to add.