Category: 18 to 24 months

Rainy Day Busy Box

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Rainy Day Busy Box (3)

Veronika has an obsession with umbrellas, so today I put together this little toy bin for her to play with! It was equal parts sensory play and imaginative play, meant to imitate a “rainy day” in miniature. I had to supervise since the mini drink umbrellas we used have sharp points, but older toddlers and preschoolers could play with this solo as a true busy box.

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In a small toy bin, I simply put the following: little people figures, blue pom poms as “raindrops”, and a few small umbrellas (like the type you find in tropical drinks).

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Veronika was smitten! The actual role play was a bit lost on her, but we “rained” the pom poms down on the people and sang “Rain rain, go away” one of her current favorite songs.

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She eagerly popped open the umbrellas! I needed to help her with the mechanics of this a little bit, but once open she could then slide them up and down.

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She loved trying to have her little people hold on to them. This brought a big smile to her face.

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In retrospect I would have made this bin on a real rainy day, to help emphasize the theme.

 

Coffee Can Games, Two Ways

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Jingle Bell Roller (5)

I had an empty coffee can in the house, and knew better than to recycle it; it would make a perfect prop for Veronika’s play. To wit, we found two great ways to use it today.

First up was a combination of art and musical play. To decorate the coffee can, I wrapped a piece of contact paper around it, sticky side out. I gave Veronika pieces of old gift wrap and old postcards so she could adorn the outside.

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Once it was decorated perfectly according to her toddler standards, I wrapped a second piece of contact paper on top, sticky side in, to seal her design.

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I then put small jingle bells inside the coffee can and secured the lid.

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Shake shake shake! We sang along (admittedly to unseasonable songs like Jingle Bells!) and she had a huge grin on her face.

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Then she discovered that she could roll the can along the floor and make it jingle. She chased it all around the house this way.

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The drawback to this game was that she wanted to open the lid and get at the bells inside, but I worried about them as a choking hazard. So we repurposed the coffee can! I cut a slit in the top with an X-acto knife and then rounded the corners slightly so she wouldn’t cut her fingers.

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Now she could post (a.k.a. push) pom poms through. “Where did green go?” I asked, popping down the first one as a demonstration.

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She mimicked my words perfectly and talked her way through the entire pile, mostly getting her colors right. “Where did blue go?” “Where did yellow go?”

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When they were all inside, we opened the lid for the big reveal and dumped them out. And then she wanted to do it again! What a great way to keep busy.

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What would you do with an empty coffee can? Please share in the comments!

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Sky’s the Limit

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Skys the Limit (1)

Today, I took some time with Veronika just to pause and look at…the sky! Yup, that’s it. With all the busy activities we do, sometimes we forget to stop and just look.

So we headed to the park and lay down on a blanket. Now she had a perfect view… up!

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We talked about everything we could see up. The leaves on the branches of the trees, the birds and butterflies going by, the puffy clouds. And of course the blue sky.

If it’s a bit bright as you head out for this activity, don’t forget the sunglasses!

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We even spotted an airplane!

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I made up song verses for all the things she could see, choosing a favorite tune (Wheels on the Bus), but instead we sang: “The birds in the sky go tweet tweet tweet” etc. This brought a big smile to her face.

 

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She was proud making the connection between the butterflies fluttering past and the one on her water bottle!

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Mostly, I tried to just lie still, and enjoy the peaceful moment. She seemed to appreciate the pause, too.

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Lettuce Tear

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Lettuce Tear (4)

Veronika got to help make lunch today! Okay, not exactly, but here’s a fantastic way to include a toddler while the rest of the family is cooking.

I gave Veronika the extra lettuce from a head we were using, and she didn’t need any instruction about what to do: tear it of course! I provided her with a big plastic bowl, and soon she had a little salad.

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Your toddler is the perfect member of the family to patiently tear salad pieces, happily keeping busy with a task that might feel mundane to bigger kids.

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In fact there was something beautiful in her concentration, as she worked.

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I also gave her a little jar of dressing to shake shake shake, part instrument and part sensory bottle.

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Between shaking and tearing, she kept busy with this for a full half hour. What a lovely project for a late spring afternoon.

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Fine Motor Pom Pom Sorting

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Fine Motor Pom Pom (4)

There are so many ways that toddlers can play with pom poms, and no doubt Veronika and I will play more complicated games with them down the line. But today we kept it as simple as can be: pom poms, a muffin tin, her fingers, and that was it!

Since she’s learning her colors, my initial idea was to sort the pom poms by color and see if she could help with the process…

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…but Veronika was so eager to get her hands into the mix that my color piles never stayed that way for long!

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She loved the feel of scooping them up from one muffin cup to the other, and seemed very proud of her transferring skills! I wasn’t about to deny her the fun.

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In fact I think she found it funny that I kept trying to arrange the pom poms one way, and she kept messing them about. She said the name of each color pom pom as she picked it up, so it turned into color learning in a different way.

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Picking up pom poms one by one is of course also great for fine motor development.

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She started to move them more deliberately in this way after she tired of big handfuls.

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Eventually  I also handed her a pair of toddler tweezers. She was so proud to move the bigger pom poms from one compartment to another, using this tool.

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This is one of those great ways to keep a toddler busy solo without too many materials or much prep work.

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Sticky Board

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Sticky Board (6)

I needed to keep Veronika occupied while I cleaned today. Enter a classic toddler activity: a contact paper sticky board! Thinking quickly, I taped a square of contact paper, sticky side out, onto the patio door.

Next I put together a little tray of odds and ends: squares of tissue paper, pieces of ribbon (too short to be choking hazards), and pom poms.

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Now it was up to Veronika to decide what should go where!

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This was the perfect activity to leave her mostly solo as I cleaned, since she loved discovering that the contact paper was sticky, pressing curious fingers against it.

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Then she could explore the various materials at her own pace.

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Wouldn’t you know, her favorite part was the painter’s tape I had used to hang the contact paper! So I ended up ripping off a few extra pieces of that for her, and she quickly added them to her collage.

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By the end, she had pulled the whole thing off the patio door, which was just fine of course; it simply meant that the play continued on the ground! And I had time to finish my cleaning.

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Pouring Station Activity

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Here’s an activity that I had originally intended to do outside, but the day was colder and cloudier than anticipated. Thinking quickly, we moved everything inside, which worked just fine! In addition to being pure fun for a toddler, a pouring station like this is a great way to promote dexterity for pouring, a necessary life skill.

To set up the station, I placed a storage bin on the floor, and then filled it with various measuring cups (both liquid and dry varieties) as well as toy pitchers and cups.

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I added a few outliers, too, like a lemon juicer that almost looks like a red boat. I left the bin itself dry (knowing it would get wet soon enough) but filled all of these various cups with water. Most contained clear water, but I added a few drops of food coloring to the see-through measuring cups. In retrospect, this meant we soon had muddy brownish water, but the color was a nice added sensory element.

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It took Veronika no time at all to begin scooping and pouring. She was most interested in the dry measuring cups, using these more like little ladles.

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To pique her interest in pouring from one of the larger “pitchers”, I dumped one out and then she took over. Now we had a fun layer of green water in the bin!

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Soon she had a little “coffee shop” in operation. She loved filling cups from her toy pot, and transferring the water back and forth from cups to pot.

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She happily mixed, poured, ladled, and stirred for over half an hour by herself!

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I had stripped her down to her diaper just in case, but remarkably she didn’t get too wet, either.

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A fantastic way to let a toddler learn to pour.

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Finder’s Keepers

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Finders Keepers (3)

With a large cardboard box in the house today, it was the perfect opportunity to play a variation on hide-and-seek. This time, Veronika’s toy was the hider, and she (the seeker) got to be the keeper.

I placed a favorite toy (a big stuffed puppy named Marshmallow) in the box, and asked her, “Where’s Marshmallow?”

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To make the search exciting, I draped a blanket over the opening and handed Veronika a flashlight. The flashlight was novel, so of course she had to check that out for a while.

Then the hunt began! I asked questions as she got closer. “Is Marshmallow behind the box? Is he on top of the box? Is he inside the box?”

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She’s getting closer…

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There he is! She was so pleased once she found her friend. Finder’s keepers!

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Of course then your toddler will probably want to play in the cave for a while.

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It was even more fun to shine the flashlight on the walls inside where it was darker! Next time maybe we’ll play this game after dark.

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Set Design

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Set Design (5)

Here’s an easy hack to turn empty cardboard boxes into play spaces with zero mess: use stickers as the backdrop to create scenery for a “stage”!

To put this together, I simply taped the background pages from a sticker set inside a large cardboard box.

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We started out with an ocean page, and Veronika could go “under the sea” simply by crawling in. She loved peeking out from this watery cave, and also adding animals to the backdrop. It was almost like a virtual aquarium!

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As an alternative, you can cut the box so it stands flat, and tape pages to the outside of it. In this way, the box now became her jungle! Use stickers or other pictures to create a farm, beach, or whatever else strikes your little stage actor’s fancy.

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This was a neat way to build on Veronika’s imaginative play as she becomes less interested in merely manipulating objects, and more interested in acting out stories. I talked about her trip to each place, and the various animals she could see.

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Other fun ideas? Use stickers to make a backdrop like a castle or outer space! If you’re more artistic than I am, of course feel free to paint these scenes. But relying on stickers was a great hack with no mess.

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Bird Watch

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Birdwatch (7)

Veronika adores birds right now, whether the tweets she hears on our walks or spotting them out the window. So as a follow-up to a few easy bird feeders we recently made, we thought about birds in a few other ways today.

First up: just listening to their sounds! I put a CD of bird song on Spotify as we sat down together to…

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…read a bird book! She has a great board book about birds, and right now we have to sit and go through it at least twice a day.

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We repeated a favorite bird feeder (pine cones rolled in peanut butter and sunflower seeds), and also made a string of unsalted circle pretzels on yarn. She loved hanging this one from our tree.

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Now when the birds come, we stop to watch through the window!

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A final fun idea is to leave a few pieces of yarn on your back patio. Birds use them this time of year for nests.

 

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Maybe we’ll even spot a colorful strand on a future walk around the neighborhood.