More Activity Ideas
- Give your baby lots of chances to grasp, pick up, drop, and place objects of different sizes and shapes.
- Encourage your baby to safely look at and point to small items. (Be sure she doesn’t put any in her mouth.) Show her the buttons on your shirt or put small stickers on your clothes and body for her to find.
- Finger-draw with your baby on fogged-up mirrors, windows, and doors.
- Create art by making handprints or footprints of your baby in wet sand or snow or in play dough. You may want to photograph and label the prints with the date so you can look at them later when your baby becomes a toddler or older.
- Keep crayons, markers, and paper with you when you’re out and about for times when you and your baby have to wait. You can entertain him by drawing pictures for him or by letting him do his own scribbling.
- You don’t need special paper or coloring books, but little fingers do need big crayons or child-safe markers. Fat pencils or sidewalk chalk work well too. Watch that none of these writing tools go into your baby’s mouth.
- Show art to your baby. Visit a museum or look for art in public places, such as the library or community center. Get up close and talk to your baby about what you see. Explore the painting, drawing, or sculpture together.
- Draw for your baby. You don’t have to be a good artist to draw—stick figures are fine!
- Talk about colors, shapes, and details in drawings you look at together in books, magazines, and in the pictures you draw. Let your baby turn the pages of a board book or photo album to find her favorite pictures.
- Remember that just because your baby can’t write and draw yet doesn’t mean he won’t enjoy stories and art. When you read to your baby, take time to look at and talk about the illustrations together—what’s happening in the picture, what colors and shapes you see, and so on.
- After you come home from a busy day or a new adventure, draw a little picture of what you did. Talk about what you are drawing as you draw. Hang it in your baby’s room or on the fridge. Say: Remember when we went to that new playground? Look, I drew a picture about it for you! You can also print photos taken with your phone and write captions for them as you discuss your adventure.
- Give your toddler plenty of space for her scribbling. Provide materials so she can make chalk drawings outside on the sidewalk, or tape large sheets of paper to the wall. Label her drawings and scribbles with her name. If you save some of the artwork, you can look back at it together when your child is older.
- Write your toddler’s name as often as you can. Point it out to her when filling in forms or labeling her room or her drawings.
- Pay as much attention or more to the effort your toddler is making as you do to what he creates. Observations, such as Those are very squiggly lines! are more meaningful than generic compliments like That’s great! Show your approval by displaying his drawings in his room or on the fridge. You can also send some to Grandma and Grandpa or take a picture and email it!
- You don’t have to wait for a holiday to let your toddler do some window painting with soap crayons or other tools that will wash off easily with water.
- Work together to make labels for your toddler’s room, such as Juan’s Books or Ashley’s Blocks. Have your toddler help you design, draw, and put the labels where they belong.
- Give your toddler a toy cell phone, old phone, or computer keyboard to play with, or let her use a real one with supervision. Show her how you type letters as you write or text. Let her try writing some of the letters in her name, type a simple message, or just press random letters to write a message of her own that she can “read” back (even though it doesn’t really say anything).
- Read books about art and drawing, such as Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson, My Crayons Talk by Patricia Hubbard, Of Colors and Things by Tana Hoban, or Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert.
- When your toddler was a baby, you helped him “read” the pictures in books by pointing to and talking about what happens in the pictures on each page. As your toddler begins talking, give him time to look at the pictures and have him tell you what is happening. Ask him questions that help him relate the pictures to the story.
- Ask relatives to write letters to your toddler. Suggest they ask questions when writing. You can read his letter to him and he can dictate a reply to you or write his own. Work together.
- When your toddler asks you to tell a story, ask her for one instead. Suggest that you write it down so that you can read it again and again. Let her tell her story, and write it as she tells it, without correcting or editing. Let her see what her words look like written down and read it back to her. Praise her for what she can do with words!
- As your toddler shares his drawings with you, ask him to tell you about his picture or what he thinks about his drawing.
- Point out print in your home as well as when you are out and about. It is important to get your toddler excited about words and how words help share ideas and information.