Posts Tagged ‘free toddler activity’
Fun With Sidewalk Chalk
Jun
A very simple and fun activity to do with your toddler is using sidewalk chalk.
Hailey and I spent a very long time the other morning writing with sidewalk chalk. She directed me to write all of her favorite names. (Brooke, Dottie, Daddy, ‘Ga,’ ‘Pa’) We drew shapes and just spent time coloring. Hailey loved it!
We didn’t do it this time, but if you wet the chalk before you write with it the colors will be much more vibrant.
**One thing to keep in mind is that if the chalk breaks it can pose a choking hazard to toddlers who are still putting everything in their mouth. So, this activity needs to be very closely supervised.
Planting Activities
Jun
I used to spend time doing some gardening- planting flowers, pulling weeds, all of that good stuff. Having a toddler makes it a little more difficult to get that kind of stuff done. But rather than not doing it anymore I decided to involve Hailey in taking care of the plants.
We had a deck in our back yard that had to be taken down and new deck was built in a different place. So, where the old deck was we planted some grass. Hailey and I have been checking the progress of the grass and I talk to her about how the grass needs sun and water to grow.
She also helped me pull all of the weeds out of our flower beds in our back yard. She thought that was fabulous! Hailey has her own little gardening set that uses to dig in the dirt to pretend to plant. One of the tools is a watering can which she uses to help water the flowers.
When we are outside doing our gardening I talk to Hailey about how the flowers smell and feel. She does not have a lot of toys for outside, but rather spends most of the time exploring. Simple things like leaves and rocks can be turned into a learning experience for a toddler.
Give your toddler a bucket to use for collecting leaves and then talk about how they feel, look, smell, etc. Let your toddler tear and crumble the leaves. Collect rocks that are big enough to not pose a chocking hazard- meaning they can not fit through a toilet paper roll. Talk about how the rocks feel. Let your toddler take them in and out of containers. Put the collection of rocks into a container that can be closed (ex- old coffee container) and shake for a fun noise. You can also let your toddler wash the rocks. All of these things will provide a lot of entertainment and learning for your toddler.
Anything hands on in nautre is a great way to teach your toddler. And the more they participate in what they are doing the more they will learn and remember from the experience.
Tags: free toddler activity, planting with toddlers, toddler leaf activity, toddler rock activity
Sheep Craft
May
Wow. What a catchy title I came up with, huh?
Anyhoo, here is what you’ll need for this fun little sheep.
- Paper plate
- Cotton
- Glue
- Pre-cut pieces for the face, legs, etc-depending on the age of the child. Since Hailey is too young for scissors I have the pieces cut out for her. For children around age 3 I would have them cut their own pieces out.
Now let the fun begin!
Hailey had never touched cotton before (unless you count when I used to use cotton balls to clean her bottom during diaper changes) so she was pretty interested in how it felt.
Gluing the cotton balls on proved to be pretty interesting. Hailey loves playing with the glue and got it on her hands. So, the cotton started sticking to her fingers and she did not like that.
We managed to finish making her sheep though:
Of course while she was making this, I asked her questions about what the cotton felt like, what color it was, and about the color and shapes of the pieces to go with the sheep.
It will probably be a little while before we use cotton and glue at the same time even though it did turn out cute.
Tags: free toddler activity, sheep craft
The Letter C
May
At the beginning of April I started teaching Hailey her letters. I pick one letter and concentrate on that letter for two weeks. I do different activities with her about that letter during those two weeks. Last week I started concentrating on the letter C.
For each letter we use Hailey’s toys to make the letter that I am teaching her. Then I take pictures and print out a few of them. I am using the ones I print out to create an ABC book. Since we’ve only done A-C that is all of the pages we have right now. I will continue to add letters to the book as I introduce them to Hailey.
At first I was going to use contact paper on each page, but that uses up an awful lot of contact paper. So, I’m putting the pages into page protectors instead. I put a piece of tape across the top of the page protector so that Hailey can’t pull the pages out. We’ll see how well that works. Then I’m using those metal rings to hold it all together. I’ll post pictures of the actual book later.
