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February 17, 2023 Ivan 0 Comments

Toddler Activities at Home: Fun Guide to Keep Them Learning

Just because your toddler isn’t in elementary school yet doesn’t mean their learning has not started yet. There are many toddler activities you can introduce to them that will entertain and teach them ABCs, 123s, and other basics.

Toddlers learn best when they are having fun. You can use toddler apps for them, most of which are designed to teach toddlers alphabets, numbers, colors, and shapes. However, if you want to minimize their screen time, these indoor toddler activities are the best alternative.

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Toddler Activities at Home to Keep Toddlers Learning

Enhance their creativity with these toddler activities

Creative play helps toddlers create, imagine, and express themselves. By giving them activities that invigorate their imagination, you help them explore their world in their own way—essential for development and learning.

Here are some toddler activities for creative pursuits:

Make a puppet person or animal

Use small plastic bottles or empty kitchen paper rolls to create a puppet. Let your toddler decorate the puppet using stickers, markers, fabric, wiggle eyes, and other crafty bits.

Create jewelry

Use shoestring (or any piece of string) and things to thread on it, such as pasta noodles, beads, or straws.

Build anything using boxes

Get those large cardboard boxes in the storage room and let your toddler decorate them. They can transform the boxes into a train, car, mini-kitchen, boat, or fortress.

Help your child cut out doors or windows, and paint the box together. To make their work personalized, you can ask them to add a handprint paint on the box.

See the world up-close using DIY binoculars

Help your toddler create his own binoculars using two empty toilet rolls. Tape the two rolls together and let your child color the binoculars. It’s inexpensive and creative!

The art of stamping

Let your child explore the beauty of shapes. Use cookie cutters as stamps. Then, add a small tray of paint. Using the cookie cutters and paint, encourage your toddler to stamp onto paper.

Draw with oil pastel

Oil pastel painting isn’t primarily for young children, but it is stimulating and fun. Let your toddler draw various shapes on a paper, then fill it in various ways. Use baby oil to smear on the painting using a cotton bud to achieve a paint-like effect.

When your toddler is done, let him hang his painting on the refrigerator.

Build anything with playdough

Playdough has been everyone’s favorite since its invention. Aside from being cheap, it is a fun toy to play with. Creative toddler activities using playdough allows your child to unleash his imagination.

You can start off by teaching your toddler how to make an animal using playdough—or anything simple that your kid can follow easily. It could also be a flower, a person, a shape, or anything basic that toddlers can quickly learn.

Soon, they can make much more complex shapes. Not only does playdough foster creativity but also fine motor skills and critical thinking.

Sticker art

Sticker art does not only boost your child’s creativity, but it’s also highly fun and keeps them engaged (or in other words, busy!). Get some packs of stickers (which shouldn’t cost that much) in the office supply section.

Let your toddler put the stickers on a piece of paper (or their body, if they want to). They can even add pen drawings on top of each sticker.

This activity is engrossing, and the result is always fun and colorful.

Heart ball art

Heart ball art is one of the best toddler activities that enhance a toddler’s creativity. For this activity, you will need paint, ball-shaped objects (that you’re willing to get paint on), tape, scissors, construction paper, and metal tin with lid.

Cut out a big heart from construction paper. Tape it to the bottom of the metal tin, then add some drops of paint at the bottom of the tin.

Put the ball-shaped objects, then put the lid on top of the lid. Make sure to close it tightly.

Then, ask your toddler to shake the metal tin—side to side, up and down, fast and slow. Check out the result!

Use the heart as an attachment to a letter. It could be a simple thank you letter to the mailman or garbagemen.

Make a train from an egg carton

What could be better than making an inexpensive and eco-friendly toy for your toddler? Building a train from an egg carton is a fun toddler activity. Plus, it improves their sensory skills.

Cut the egg carton into the individual egg pieces. Then, punch holes on each opposite side. Let your toddler put the “train” together by sticking the pipe cleaners through the tiny holes.

Watch your toddler finish the train. Choo-choo!

Foster Fine Motor Skills With These Toddler Activities

Fine motor skills refer to the ability to coordinate one’s senses and physical movements to act skillfully, such as hands and fingers, with the eyes. Writing, fastening clothing, and grasping objects are just a few movements associated with fine motor skills.

The toddler activities that foster fine motor skills below are simple, open-ended, creative, and inexpensive.

Beads on spaghetti

Let your toddler exercise muscle control with this fun activity. For this activity, you will need playdough, beads, and dry spaghetti noodles.

Make a huge ball using the playdough (this serves as the base), and poke the playdough with spaghetti noodles (this serves as skewers). Let your child thread beads onto the spaghetti skewers, following a pattern.

To step up this activity, you can stick numeral cards into the dough to teach them basic 123s.

Scooping rice

This is one of the easiest toddler activities you can do at home to enhance your toddler’s fine motor skills. For this activity, you will need rice, scoops, containers, and a storage tub.

Ask your toddler to transfer the rice from one container to another using small scoops.

Bead drop jar

This activity will help your toddler improve their pinching skills. You will need a canning jar, tweezers, pony beads, hole punch, scissors, and cardstock. Here’s how to assemble the game.

Peel tape

Peel tape is a straightforward toddler activity. Apply painter’s paint or colored electrical tape to a surface (i.e., floor or tabletop), then ask your child to peel them off. This activity will help them improve their pinching skills.

Pin the tail of the bunny

For this activity, you will need scissors, pom poms (or cotton balls) in coordinating colors, velcro, glue gun, and printable bunny.

Print out the bunny (in different colors that match the tails). Cut them out, then glue velcro to the bottom of each bunny.

Let your toddler put the tail on the bunny, making sure that they match colors.

Boost Critical Thinking Skills With These Toddler Activities

Toddlers are curious and have so many questions about anything. Let them stimulate their curiosity by giving them toddler activities that exercise their critical thinking skills.

Guess what I have

Hold a toy behind your back, then ask your child to guess what’s in your hand. Give them clues such as: “It’s not green, it’s blue,” or “it doesn’t have legs, but has wheels.” This lets them make guesses based on what they already know.

Food tasting

Encourage your toddler to give their opinion—it’s always best to do it with food, as kids have strong opinions about them. It’s either they love it or hate it.

Bring out some foods that you know your toddler loves or hates. Ask them if they like the food or not, as well as why and why not.

Sort the Lego bricks

There are countless things kids can build with Lego bricks. But toddlers may be too young to even start building houses.

What you can do instead is to encourage them to sort the Lego bricks by color. Use coordinating containers, and encourage them to put each Lego brick where they belong according to color.

Conclusion

Toddlers love to have fun, so why not incorporate some toddler activities into their routine. These activities will keep them entertained, engaged, and learning. It’s an important step before they reach preschool.

Go ahead and give these toddler activities a try, and let us know how your toddler likes them.

Connect with other parents and learn more about toddler activities

Are you itching for more advice? Connect with other parents and ask them about easy and inexpensive toddler activities you can perform at home. By signing up to All Digital School, you get access to our community forum where you can post questions, solicit answers, and share experiences and stories.

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What do you think of the toddler activities we listed above? Let us know in the comments section below or post a thread on our community forum.

home education learn at home parenting toddler activities toddler apps

Toddler Activities at Home: Fun Guide to Keep Them Learning

Toddler Activities at Home to Keep Toddlers Learning