Creative Toddler Activities...

We play a lot with water in our house. Yesterday I let them (almost 3 and almost 5) play with the hose and gave them different sized containers to fill. Then I turned the water off, got some cheap handsoap ($1 per bottle) and brought out my daughter's my little ponies and had them play 'Beauty Salon' and they washed the ponies hair!

You could get two bowls, a pair of tongs and ice. Have your child practice using the tongs to get the ice from bowl to bowl.

Shaving cream is another fav of ours! We put it on the table or a cookie sheet and play with it (they often make 'soup'). I have even dyed it with food coloring - that was fun!

Do you have any pipe cleaners or those wikki sticks (think that is what they are called)? Get a colander and turn it upside down and have your child practice putting the pipe cleaner/wikki sticks into the holes. Great for fine motor!!

Beads and string are good - but be sure to get large enough ones that they are not a choking hazard!

I love the no time for flashcards site. I get lots of our activities off of there. I think they have alot of sensory tubs, correct?

I put different sizes of beans in one of those shoe box size plastic boxes with a lid. Sometimes I put other thigns in the tub - right now, I have the letters that spell her name. I give my daughter an empty mixing bowls and some measuring cups, spoons, tongs, etc. and let her go to work. She will spend 30-45 minutes scooping those beans and lentels from one bowl to another.

I have another one with different types of pasta, corn, and white navy beans. I give her a muffin tin and she sorts the pastas. I also draw a simple picture with glue, or right her name with glue, and let her stick the beans, corn, and pasta on to make a picture.

I have another tub that has colored blocks, animals, and bugs (each are all one color - blue block, orange lamb, etc). I cut out house shapes out of construction paper, and she sorts the objects onto the house shapes. Most of the time, she puts all the orange things on the orange house, blue things on the blue house, etc. but sometimes she puts all the animals in a house, all the bugs in a house, all the blocks in a house.

I have another little tub with string, pipe cleaners, beads, macaroni, and ziti in it. When I get that tub out, she strings the beads and pasta.

When she gets a little older, we will start doing patterns with all of the activities. For example, with the string tub, I will make an index cards where I glue different patterns (bead, bead, pasta, bead, bead, pasta). She can pick a card and copy the pattern.

Another thing - I bough stick on letters with a fuzzy texture at Michael's. I put each one on an index card that I then cut down so it was just a little square with a letter on it. We "study" some letters each week - I have my daughter trace the fuzzy letter with her finger. I put the fuzzy letter in a brownie pan and cover it with rice, and she traces it in the rice. I have her try to draw the letter in the rice with NO fuzzy letter. I also just use a postit or an index card to put the letters up around the house on objects that start with the letter - a Dd on the door, Bb on the bathtub, etc. and then we go on letter hunts around the house. I also put the letters we are studying in her bean or macaroni tub, and she picks them out.

I also get activities from here: http://www.redshift.com/~bonajo/preschool_activities.htm

I have different tubs to keep them organized but here they also put them in ziplock gallon bags.

things to do with an active toddler..
toddler proof your kitchen and set aside a couple of the lower cabinets just for them to play in, put different types of toys in different rooms, and we have a teddy bear emergency room in the back bedroom, our daughter has a teddy bear that is always need of "doctor frankie"
K. h.