More Activity Ideas
- Help babies learn how to make things move by batting, kicking, and shaking. Securely hang a beach ball or an empty water bottle where babies can reach it with their hands or feet.
- Give babies opportunities to watch live animals. You might show them fish in a tank, introduce them to pets, hang a bird feeder near a window, or look for squirrels outside. As you observe animals, talk about their fur or fins, legs or wings, and about how they move. Then together move like the animal.
- Blow gently on a baby’s hands or hair. Let her experience the wind outdoors or a breeze from a paper fan or rotary fan. Also let babies watch ribbons, grasses, and wind chimes blow in the wind. Talk about how these objects feel, see, and sound.
- Let babies explore gravity, sounds, bouncing, and rolling by having them drop baby-safe items into different containers. Offer just a few items and containers at a time. Try letting babies drop drinking straws and plastic spoons into containers with narrow necks. Can they get them out again?
- Partially fill a few plastic bottles with materials such as beans, rice, pasta, colored water, or gravel. Glue the lids on securely. Talk about and mimic the different sounds babies make as they shake and bang the bottles.
- Fill plastic water bottles with soapy water, water and cooking oil, or glitter with water or cooking oil. Glue the lids on securely. Let babies explore what happens as they shake, roll, and bang the bottles.
- Give older babies cause-and-effect toys with buttons to push, levers to move, or wheels to turn. You can also offer bowling sets made from plastic bottles partially filled with water or beans. Glue the lids on securely. Then line them up and let babies roll a ball or soft toy to knock them all down!
- Go outside to a safe area and let older babies play with piles of dried leaves, explore snow, or watch dripping water. Let them explore various materials such as bark, moss, stone, sand, and grass with their hands and feet.
- Let babies explore soapsuds. Add dish soap or shaving cream to a bin of lukewarm water. Let babies join in as you stir up bubbles. Add a few toys that float and sink, a washcloth or sponge, a bubble blower, or a toy watering can. Encourage exploration as you talk about how babies can float, hide, find, and clean the toys.
- Create a ramp for rolling toy cars. You can prop a cutting board on a book, a shoebox on its cover, or use a large cardboard tube. As babies roll cars down the ramp, talk about how you can make the cars roll faster or farther.
- Explore freezing and melting water with toddlers. Put ice cubes, snow, or shaved ice in a sensory table or plastic bin. Give toddlers tools such as scoops, spoons, and containers. Talk about what happens as the ice or snow melts.
- Put ice and water in a glass. Let toddlers explore how water vapor condenses on the outside of the glass. Explore what happens when they touch it.
- Explore floating and sinking. Use natural and man-made materials. Include absorbent materials, such as coffee filters and sponges. Encourage children to predict what objects will float or sink and whether an object will stay down or pop up when they sink it.
- Float toy boats in a bin of water or a puddle. See if toddlers can move the boats by blowing with a hand fan, ball pump, or bellows.
- Give toddlers a variety of interesting kitchen tools, such as a garlic press, potato masher, mallet, rolling pin, and cookie cutters, to use with soft play dough. Watch as if toddlers figure out how the different tools work (or offer help if needed). Talk about what children discover about each tool.
- Show toddlers how to make tracks in snow, sand, or mud. Let toddlers experiment with the different tracks and patterns they make by walking, running, and jumping. Look for bird and animal tracks together.
- Show toddlers different animals—include animals that fly, crawl, and swim. Together count each animal’s body parts. Talk about how animals use each body part. Use specific verbs as you talk about and mimic how each animal moves.
- Help toddlers collect and display objects from nature, such as pinecones, acorns, and leaves. Together sort objects by size, shape, texture, etc. Put similar items together or arrange items in patterns. Encourage toddlers to dictate or draw labels or captions for their displays.
- Make a garden corner in your setting. Together plant and grow herbs in small pots. Have toddlers help water and tend the plants. Once plants start to grow, you may want to snip clippings for toddlers to crush, tear, smell, and taste.
- Explore fruits and vegetables with seeds. At snack time, cut open fruits and vegetables and talk about the seeds.
- “Plant” a sweet potato so you can watch it sprout leaves and roots. Place a sweet potato in a clear jar. Fill the jar with water so that half the potato is under water. If the neck of the jar is too wide to hold up the sweet potato, you can use toothpicks to hold it in place. Place the jar in the sun. Change the water daily.