More Activity Ideas
- While doing errands, going for walks, or even just moving around your home, show baby everything and let him touch, smell, taste, and listen as appropriate. He’ll be amazed to see water come from the kitchen faucet when you turn it on. Have him touch the water and talk to him about it being cool and wet.
- If your baby is trying to reach an object, encourage her to get it. You may need to move it so she can safely and successfully get it herself.
- Give your baby toys and safe objects of different textures to grab, hold, and drop.
- Give your baby toys and household items that move in interesting ways or make interesting sounds when they are shaken, twisted, turned over, poked, banged, or rolled. As she explores, comment on what she does and what she can make happen!
- Hand your baby a toy, then ask for it back. Go back and forth.
- Take turns doing anything: blowing kisses, waving goodbye, eating yogurt.
- Do laundry together and touch and talk about how different fabrics feel. Smell the fragrance of just-washed clothes.
- With your baby, observe pets, cars, and people to explore how things move.
- Take a hands-on nature walk and let your baby feel the grass and touch rough tree bark.
- Roll a ball or a toy car down a ramp or slide or through a tunnel. Experiment together with other objects or try making the ramp more or less steep.
- Use plastic containers to explore concepts like empty and full as part of daily routines, such as bathtime and mealtime.
- Use size words as you build together with blocks: tall, taller, tallest; big, bigger, biggest.
- On a sunny day, have fun outdoors with soap, bubbles, and water. Let your toddler blow or chase bubbles, give her toys a bath, or paint the sidewalk wet and watch the water evaporate. Help her make “raindrops” and “rainbows” by squeezing or shaking a sponge, spraying water from a hose, or making big soap bubbles.
- Talk about the tools and machines you use every day and how they work (for example, car, bus, broom, refrigerator): The refrigerator keeps our food cold. We have to make sure that the door is closed tight so the cold air stays inside.
- When you go about daily errands together, talk to your toddler about what workers do at the store, post office, bank, and so on. Demonstrate the use of polite words such as please, thank you, and excuse me.
- Point out interesting smells to your toddler when you’re cooking in the kitchen and offer him tastes of a wide variety of foods.
- Talk about and demonstrate cause-and-effect as you go about your day: When I push this button, the car doors lock.
- Show your older toddler how to turn on a flashlight. See if he can shine the light on objects you name or describe. Then let him name some things for you to light up.
- Help your older toddler reenact what he has seen around the house and in the community: pretend to deliver mail, collect garbage, or shop for groceries (using a push toy or stroller).
- Play hide-and-seek together. Next, play hide-and-seek with stuffed animals!
- As you do things, think out loud and ask and answer your own questions: I need a screwdriver to loosen this screw. Do I turn it right or left? When I try turning it left, it gets looser.
- At the playground or at the beach, help your child explore the textures of sand. Compare dry, hot sand and cool, wet sand. Build towers and moats, houses, and so on. Let her experiment with designs in the sand with a stick, spoon, or fork.
- Name the characters, describe the action, and sing and move along with the songs when you and your older toddler watch Between the Lions or Peep and the Big Wide World story videos together.