Fun with Toddlers!

I think I'll have to send this to my DH ;)

This has given me some great ideas, unfortunately DD is bored but too young for 99% of these activities.

You might be surprised Charlotte. I remember with DD I didn't think to try lots of stuff because she was too little, but then DS came along and he already had an inbuilt babysitter lol who was doing stuff. He tried paint, crayons, chalk, playdough etc far earlier than DD did and loved them.
The painting with water type stuff - great age.
Playing with rice/flour in a tub with some spoons and cups. Yes they make a mess, but it's summer and it washes off.
Empty mixing bowl/spoon/plastic utensils when you're cooking

Charlotte, I remember both my DDs loved 'posting' activities at your DDs age. I used a tissue box, a peanut butter jar with a hole cut in the lid and a cereal box with a slit cut in the lid and used pictures I had cut out of magazines, photos of family members, pics from catalogues and milk bottle lids for posting. Both DDs loved them and often found other things to post too like blocks, animals, toys... They also loved me naming the images for them and then graduated onto naming the pictures themselves. Great for fine motor skills, spacial awareness (big things don't fit in small holes) language development and the development of self confidence - it is something they can do themselves, just like a big person.

DDs both loved pouring at that age too. Water, rice, dried beans, whatever is around, in a big plastic tub with kitchen implements, muffin trays, egg trays, scoops, funnels, cups, toilet rolls, string, dolls and animals, milk bottle tops... anything you can think of can be added. Just try to keep it simple to begin with and rotate the pouring material and the implements to keep it interesting.

I second what jackrose says - DS LOVES 'posting' and putting things into containers, taking lids on and off, pulling them out. And he just adores pouring too - mostly at bath time or tipping water/milk out of the cup at meal times, lol! He really likes the water table and will play independently here for waaaay longer than he will at anything else (except Duplo!).

DS is also enjoying gardening atm - weeding and digging in the dirt. At least it means there is actual dirt to wash off at bath times.... ;)

Bumping again

I'm starting this thread partly for myself and partly because I'm sure there are others out there who find themselves doing the same things day in, day out. New ideas are always good!!!

I do lots of different things with DD1, but now that the days are getting colder I'm finding that we are both getting a bit bored at home. Add to that the fact than she has started to drop her day nap and I'm finding it hard to fill her days with entertaining and, where possible, educational activities. I am finding the tv being turned on a little too often for my liking recently.

So, my question is, what activities do you do with your baby/toddler? Please include their age so that people looking for new ideas have a reference.

Here's what I do.

DD1 (29 months old)
Painting
Play dough
Cooking
Visit parks (when the weather allows)
Read books
Story time at the library (occasionally)
Playgroup once a week (occasionally)
Play with toys
Play with the iPad (I try to limit this)
Watch tv (I try to limit this)
Go for walks (when the weather allows)
Feed the ducks
Play outside
Colour in
Sing songs
Puzzles
Crafts

DD2 (almost 5 months)
Read books
Practice holding/shaking toys
Tummy time
Talk to each other
Sing songs
Go for walks

(I know there are more, but I've come to a blank)

For cold day activities I love Pinterest. There are so many clever ideas on there.
We do activities for the seasons so for Autumn we collected leaves and did printing we also made an artwork with a twig from a tree and buttons for the branches and lots of different textured materials like hessian. Bub got to play with leaves while 2.5yo dd and I did art.
We do colouring in, build with blocks, play instruments, dance, dress up, put on puppet shows, build a tent using a blanket over the table, play hide and seek, playdo, play in her kitchen, fill the sink with soapy water and she washes her Tupperware, read books, bake at least once a week, fill containers with different pastas and lentils etc and scoop them and pour them into a funnel etc, lacing boards, watch dvd's. I'm sure there's heaps more. Bub 6 months old joins in with everything in his own way :)

Some new ideas already. Thanks Babyluv :)

Great post hun, I'm totally in the same boat!

Good idea!

DS (37 months)
All of the above, plus
Sandpit play
Gardening (DS loves piling leaves on the garden, weeding, watering - sometimes just pretend watering, picking leaves and flowers).
Train sets (and building the city all around so we can deliver flour to the bakery, send the kids to kindy, shop, post letters).
Shopping (we have shopping lists of pictures for DS to collect and put in a bag)
Stamping
Cooking - pretend and real (made a fridge out of a cardboard box that gets well used)
Hide and seek
Gymnastics (there's a great class here for $5, casual)
Singing and making up rhymes
Building with Blocks
'Collecting' games and pictures - DS uses the things he's collected to sort into groups and make pictures. Shells, nuts, old sprinkler heads, coloured paper, buttons.
Sticky pictures.Put up a piece of contact, give DS a pile of 'stuff' and he can stick to his hearts' content! No mess, and we reuse a lot of stuff over and over. Pegs, buttons, paper, wool, ribbons, leaves, shells.
DS follows me around everywhere, so a lot of the time he helps me...unpack the dishwasher, peg clothes out, vacuum etc he's my peg boy/sock boy/kitchen hand etc

Sometimes you need a new take on the 'same old things'. Eg Mummy was very playdoughed out until I realised all the other things we could do with it that I hadn't done before....animal footprints (DS guesses which animal made the footprint); cupcake decorating with paper patty pans, old birthday candles, seeds, nuts, pom poms, ice cream sticks etc.

Off now, as DS has asked to play 'kitchen boy' this arvo, which works out great as we're having spaghetti Bol, so he'll help with that ;)

There is already a thread

https://www.bellybelly.com.au/forums...49/index5.html

I'll merge the two later.

Thanks Olive! I did take a quick look, as I was sure there would be something, but I couldn't find it.