More Activity Ideas
- Give young babies lots of hand and finger practice. You might have them grip your finger and let it go, shake a scarf, finger different textures, or pick things up and turn them over.
- Put a loose mitten on a baby’s hand. Show her how to shake her hand and pull it off. Let her work it off her hand on her own.
- Play pat-a-cake and hand-clapping games with babies. Ask family members to teach you games they learned as a child and the games that their babies enjoy at home.
- Hang a mobile securely where babies can practice batting, grasping, pulling, and letting go.
- Help older babies develop hand strength and control by giving them different things to put into containers and take out again. Include objects that make interesting noises when squeezed, shaken, dropped, or crinkled.
- Help babies use a variety of tools such as spoons, shovels, toy hammers, and drumsticks.
- Offer babies soft dough to squeeze, poke, pinch, roll, and stretch. Give them safe objects, such as dowels, toy animals, and plastic people, to stick into the dough.
- Give babies toys and household items that require precise manipulation—such as poking, winding, or pushing a button—to make interesting things happen. Items might include busy boxes, lock boxes, windup toys, doorbells, and snow globes. (You can make snow globes from plastic bottles partly filled with water, cooking oil, and some glitter. Glue on the top and shake.)
- Let babies “finger paint” with different materials, such as pudding or shaving cream. If a baby is reluctant to touch the paint, you can put the paint in a resealable bag and tape the bag on the table.
- Notice the “stories” babies tell when they show you something or imitate something that they have seen. Put the stories into words for the babies, and share them with family members.
- Give a toddler a toy cell phone, old phone, or computer keyboard to play with. Together type letters in his name, a simple message, or let him press random letters to write a message of his own.
- Let toddlers paint at easels or on large vertical surfaces such as sheets of paper taped to a wall or refrigerator. This builds arm and shoulder strength as well as control and hand-eye coordination.
- Teach toddlers finger plays such as “Where is Thumbkin?” “The Itsy-Bitsy Spider,” and “Open Shut Them.”
- Give toddlers finger puppets to encourage both finger play and storytelling. If children want to put on a show, you can turn a large cardboard box into a puppet theater.
- Let toddlers paint with water outside. They can make their paintings as big as they like—and there’s no cleanup. Talk with them about their work and what happens as the water evaporates.
- Encourage the active artist in toddlers. Talk with them about how they stamp, splatter, fold, smear, arrange, and dribble as they work with art materials.
- Let toddlers paint with finger paint or shaving cream. Add to the fun by offering a child two or three different colors. Or give two or three toddlers different colors. Encourage them to explore mixing the colors.
- Let older toddlers build with alphabet blocks, arrange wooden or plastic letters, and make imprints of the letters in play dough. Encourage toddlers who show interest in learning the letter names. Help them find and name their initials or letters in their name.
- Ask colleagues and family members to show children how they write in different alphabets.
- Provide toddlers with different ways to “write” by offering tools such as stick-on labels, letter sponges, chalk, and flannel boards. Let toddlers write on different surfaces such as cardboard, unbreakable mirrors, smart boards, sidewalks, and wet sand.
- Offer toddlers over two years of age carefully selected software, recording devices, or tablet apps that let them make their own pictures and tell their own stories.