Need Ideas for Entertaining My Toddler

Highlights for Kids has a new book called High Five that is for kids 2-6. My kids really enjoy both the high five and the regular Highlights. You can see a sample at: http://www.highlightshighfive.com/ You'll have to do it with him, but it's fun and beats watching TV.

I picked up a couple of books from 1/2 Price Books that specifically answer this question! There are literally hundreds of activities, and most of them are fairly practical if you need to not be keeping an eagle eye on the kiddo the whole time. The titles of the books are: Baby Days: Activities, Ideas, and Games for Enjoying Daily Life with a Child Under Three by Barbara Rowley and The Preschoolers Busy Book: 365 creative Games and Activities to Keep Your 3-6 Year Old Busy! by Trish Kuffner. There's a lot of overlap for activities that are appropriate for a wide range of kids, depending on their developmental levels. You may be able to find these (and many other books!) on Amazon inexpensively.

Nickjr.com and starfall.com have some great printable activities. Hooked on Phonics also has some excellent educational DVDs for those times when you might want to let him watch TV.

My daughter and I are doing Spirit Week this week. Each day has its own theme. Blue day (everything we wear, eat, drink, color...) is blue. Sports Day. Backward Day (breakfast for dinner, dinner for bfast, wear our clothes backward).....I also cut-out different colored shapes for her and then give her a glue stick. We have a table covered with paper and she can glue them down and call them out while I write the words beside them. We also play "Silly Billies" and just get up and dance or sing or chase each other around the house.

With the holidays coming up maybe he can make "Hand Turkeys" (paper plates with a hand print), or Xmas cards with Hand Wreaths (paper plate with hand prints in a green circle).

Hope these ideas help. I know it can be tiring to try to come up with fresh new ideas. Good luck!

:-)

2 is such a fun age! Get some child safe scissors and a glue stick - kids LOVE cutting and pasting. Painting is also fun, just make sure you use washable paint! Blocks are great. Depending on your tolerance for messes, you could set up a water or sand table in your kitchen (just not both!). Reading books together, doing puzzles. My 2 year old with play with play-doh for hours if I let her. Turn on some music and have a dance party (my husband does this with our girls - they turn off all the lights and wave glow-sticks or flashlights around - so cute!). Play hide and seek - though it may take a little while for him to catch on :)

A sandbox or a waterbox would be a good idea. They don't require sitting still like clay or crayons, but they allow for manipulation and exploration. On days when my two-year-old can't go outside, I put a couple of towels or an old bedsheet on the livingroom floor (we have hardwood), set a plastic mixing bowl full of water on it, get her a few kitchen utensils, and let her go. We usually get a half an hour of quiet play out of it, and then we clean up together.

I'm sure there are a million other things to do with him, but after reading your post I was thinking along the lines of art projects. We would do, "gluing projects". Get pasta (dry of course), colored tissue paper, cut up wrapping paper pieces and ribbons. Let him glue these to a paper. Also, not sure how much of a mess you're up for but I made a sensory table for my son. In the livng room (and that's where it stayed) I would put dried split peas and tiny pasta circles in a bin (low sides) and give him measuring spoons and measuring cups, and some of his cars/tractors to make tracks with. Then when time to clean up, scoop as much as you can back into a platic bag and then just vacuum. I'd even give my son the vacuum hose sometimes and have him vacuum them up. This works better if they're 2 1/2 or closer to 3. Oh, and when it snows, put a bunch of snow in the kitchen sink. Let him stand on chair, give him stuff to play with in the snow (spoons, spatulas, etc). Sorry my ideas are messy. I just know we had a lot of fun doing them. :o)

My 2 y/o boy loves his scooter and his sandbox. He also enjoys cars and trains...he finds patterns on the rug to drive cars on. Building with blocks, then tearing it down. We read a fair amount too, I usually read a book at lunch and snack times, he is in the high chair so I have his full attention. Pretend food is entertaining, serving and cooking, setting up a picnic. It's very easy to turn all of these play times into learning activities covering colors, sounds, counting, etc. Mine looses interest in crayons pretty quickly too but he loves the Aquadoodle mat. Don't feel too quilty about TV, sometimes it is a sanity saver :)

Puzzles, stickers, legos, cars
Pretend play: cooking, dress-up
Musical instruments, drums
Look at his baby pictures

If he likes watching TV maybe try more education videos. The Leapfrog DVD's (start with Letter Factory) are great and will teach him his letters/sounds, etc.
Besides TV, I would also have cars, trucks, legos, color wonders, paper/stickers.

I'm jealous that you get to work at home!
:)

I read that boys are drawn to toys and activities that are about motion. This was certainly true for my son. We got him a train table from Craigslist and a couple of train sets from Ikea and Melissa & Doug and 2 years later he still can play for hours around that thing. Also boys are drawn to spatially oriented toys, and at this age they like to practice sorting. So my son loved the wooden blocks that he could build with and sort by shape. He's never been much interested in art, sadly. Maybe someday. I get a little tired of the cars/trains play, so I let him do that by himself and I jumped in a little here and there. We love reading together and we do that a lot.

I'd also suggest as much time outside as that is really fantastic for building up your little guy's brain. For me it's easier to talk about things happening in nature and see what he's observing. Waldorf education is really big on nature inspired learning and developmentally appropriate play so maybe there's a book from the library to check out that can give you ideas.

The other thing I'd check out is activities at libraries and other publicly funded institutions like your parks and recreation facilities. Our libraries in Portland have something every day for every age group (at different libraries).

Also at this age he might love to help you do things around the house. It means everything takes longer, but it's also an activity for him and he will get good at it. He can bring napkins to the table, and maybe set his own place, he can sort socks in the laundry, he can pick up his toys. I made a spray bottle with diluted Dr. Bronner's soap so that my son could spray things and wipe them wiht a rag like I was doing - - I just let him spray/wipe randomly.

Our son never watches regular TV and we watch about 1 very tame dvd a month (he's almost 4) as "movie night." I kept him away from anything like that till he was almost 3. As a result he's very good at playing by himself and with others and has a fantastic attention span (better than my husband), great imagination, curiosity, is really well behaved and mimics the books we read for role play instead of commercial characters who don't display behavior I feel comfortable with. Kids don't need any TV, and I felt the longer I could put it off the better. I know when he's older he may be more insistent about asking for it, so I just wanted to build up his play skills without it.

Best wishes! I wish I could work at home with my kids, good for you!

Hi Y.,

The Burger King on Barbur Blvd has a GREAT!! playland, it was a lifesaver during the winter months.

R. Magby