Category: 2-Year-Old

Letter Find

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The rice in our rain stick project this morning reminded me of a game I’ve played with Travis a few times before, one that’s well worth setting up again! Your child will absolutely love the tactile play with dry rice; meanwhile you’ll sneak in a little early learning with letter and word recognition.

Bury alphabet magnets in the rice and have your child dig through and discover which letters are “hiding.” A great first word to play with is his or her name. Travis correctly identified all the letters, and when I placed them in order, he was able to tell me it said Travis.

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We played with a few other simple words as well, like DOG and CAT, but after that Travis was more interested in pouring handfuls of rice in and out of the tupperware container. Fine by me, except that I didn’t want rice all over the kitchen floor!

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It turned into a great reminder of why I love signing with Travis. I pointed out that rice on the floor was a “no” and rice on the newspaper was a “yes,” saying and signing the words. He quickly latched on to the concept, and we had much easier clean-up that way!

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Rain Sticks

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Travis and I woke up to a rainy morning – so what better activity than to make a rain stick? You only need a few household items to put this craft together.

Start with a paper towel tube, and let your child decorate any way they like. I drew a few blue raindrops as prompts and told Travis we were drawing a stormy day, so he was very excited to use blue for rain, black for storm clouds, and white for lightning.

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Close up one end of the rain stick with a sheet of aluminum foil, and secure with masking tape. Parents, I learned through trial and error that a double (or triple!) layer of foil is a safe idea here, so you don’t get any pesky holes.

Next, shape a pipe cleaner into a loose coil, and have your child insert into the tube. Can I be honest? I have no idea what the pipe cleaner is for. To give the rice inside the rain stick something to fall down around, perhaps? Ah well, I followed instructions, so in goes the pipe cleaner.

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This next step was Travis’s favorite part. Let your child help you pour dry rice into the tube. Make sure you don’t add too much (in which case the rice can’t shake around enough); a 1/4 cup felt like a good amount. Seal up the other end of the tube with foil and tape, and your rain stick is ready for shaking!

Travis had some fun with the imaginative task of “raining” on flowers we have here at home..

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…after which he made it rain over his barn and animals.

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No matter what the weather, rain sticks make great instruments, so tuck this project away until the next time you and your toddler have a music-making session.

Handprint Sheep

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There are multiple experiences contained within this one art project: the concept of tracing, fine motor skill development from using glue, and of course the tactile fun of cotton balls! It’s a simple art project for a lazy morning at home.

To start, trace your child’s hand on construction paper with a pencil. In retrospect, I wish I’d used a better background than plain white – perhaps green for a sheep’s meadow? Your child’s fingers are now the sheep’s four “legs” and his or her thumb is the “head.” Travis really enjoyed having his hand traced. He removed it from the paper a few times before I could finish, but put it right back in the same spot when I asked him to.

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Since a child’s hand is so small, I decided to make a “mommy sheep” next to his baby sheep, and traced my own hand.

Have your child dab glue all over the bodies of the sheep (the palms of your handprints), then press down fluffy cotton balls for the wool. Needless to say, Travis loved this part!

Handprint Sheep (2)Once the glue dried, we finished our creation with crayons. I can’t say that Travis really understood we were coloring in a sheep’s head and legs, but in his defense, I’m not sure our woolly little creatures look much like sheep either! They’re cute and fun though, so can’t beat that.

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The craft also lends itself nicely to a few ways to continue your playtime; Travis wanted to trace other objects with the pencil after we finished, and of course extra cotton balls had to take a turn in our pom pom chute.

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Animal Safari

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This activity is an oldie-but-goodie in our household, one of Travis’s favorite games to play before bed. We only play a couple of times a month so that it’s always exciting when I announce it’s a night to hunt for our animal friends!

While your child isn’t looking, hide a few stuffed animals, preferably jungle-themed. This set from Giggle fits the bill perfectly. I recommend “hiding” the animals in fairly obvious places so your little one doesn’t get frustrated.

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As part of your bedtime routine, dim the lights and announce that it’s safari time. I love giving Travis a flashlight to hold as he searches to add to the excitement, and he loves when his spotlight falls on a furry find.

Somebody’s getting warmer…

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Tada! Travis triumphantly uncovers a hippo:

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And is that a monkey under the couch?

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Encourage your child to name the animals they have found, for some fun vocab practice as well. And now good night!

Hey Diddle Diddle

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Travis and I are having a bit of a moon-themed week, so the popular nursery rhyme “Hey Diddle Diddle” has been forefront in my mind. This game is a fun way to introduce not only the lyrics to this childhood favorite, but also to teach about spatial concepts. In case you need a parental brush-up, the words are as follows:

Hey Diddle Diddle, the cat and the fiddle

The cow jumped over the moon.

The little dog laughed to see such sport

And the dish ran away with the spoon.

Tape a picture of the moon to a piece of construction paper or poster board and present to your little one, along with a cut-out of a cow. You can then ask your child if they’ve ever really seen a cow jumping over the moon. Travis took right to the game, moving his cut-out cow above the moon on the paper.

I turned it into a bit of a quiz, which he proceeded to ace! Could he put the cow under the moon? Yup!

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Next to the moon? Yup! I found it very interesting that when I asked for the cow “over the moon” a second time, he covered the moon like it was peek-a-boo instead of putting the cow above the moon, as my adult brain would have.

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We then got a little silly, having the cow “dance” next to the moon and “jump” across the paper.

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To continue the fun, I taped our moon picture to the wall and put the cow on a popsicle stick, so Travis could return to the game a few times over the course of the afternoon.

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You can also act out the riddle in 3-D by having your child jump a stuffed toy cow over a ball to represent the moon.

Can you think of fun ways to act out the remaining lines of the nursery rhyme? Please share ideas in the comments!

Build a Sand(Paper) Castle

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Today was our first beach day of the summer! We took Travis to the beach last summer, but at one-year old, he likely has only foggy memories of it.

So to set the tone for a fun beach day, we started our morning with this easy sand(paper) castle craft at home!

You’ll need various grades of sandpaper to make the castle (coarse, medium, and fine), and I recommend a variety of colors as well for the best visual effect. Cut the sandpaper sheets into shapes like rectangles, squares, and triangles and then let your child arrange on the paper.

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At this age, Travis needed help gluing the pieces in proper formation, but he loved dipping a paintbrush in the glue and dabbing on the back of the sandpaper pieces before I affixed each one (and sometimes added more glue after, as you see in the picture!).

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If you have older kids, let them be the architect of their own castle formation!

Once the glue has dried, finish your castle with a marker background. We made sure to add a beautiful blue sky day.

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The fun need not stop there; leftover sandpaper pieces made for great play on the carpet, organizing into structures and talking about the various shapes.

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Then Travis discovered it felt funny on his feet to walk on the sandpaper. “Ouch!” he said with a laugh, before walking back across.

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And then it was off to the real beach!

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Stuffed Snake

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Yesterday, Travis got to see snakes at a nearby nature preserve. So of course we had to bring the fun home today!

To make your “snake,” all you need is a pair of old knee-high nylons and yesterday’s newspaper. Parents, you’re going to largely have to put this craft together for your little one, as little arms can’t reach all the way to the toe of the stocking. But Travis had a blast helping to crumple up the newspaper:

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He was eager to help stuff the newspaper inside until we had a long snake. To finish, simply tie a tight knot at the end.

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Before playing with the snakes, Travis had fun selecting a few pieces from our felt collection to glue on as eyes and mouths. After that, the sky’s the limit! What didn’t we do with our snakes?

We “slithered” them:

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We crawled them along the windowsill:

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We kicked them:

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We shook them (the newspaper makes a fantastic approximation of a rattlesnake’s rattle):

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We also recreated a jungle play scene from Daniel Tiger (Season 1, Episode 2), jumping from bean bag to bean bag through snake-infested territory. Travis got quite a kick out of this activity.

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And what jungle is complete without base camp? Ours even had a special guest appearance by a black panther:

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How did your child play with the snakes? Please share in comments below!

Black Magic

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I told Travis that today we were going to make some magic with our artwork, and he got so excited! There are two versions of this game, “revealing” other colors through black paint or crayons, and the second version worked much better for us.

Try both and see which one your child likes better!

In the first, have your child color as thickly as they can with crayons on white paper. Travis loved the idea of coloring very thickly, and took to it right away.

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Next, use black watercolor paint and a paintbrush to color over the whole paper. The crayon wax will resist the paint, for a very cool effect. Travis was only mildly interested in this version though, because he is new to watercolors and was more interested in mixing the various colors and dipping the paintbrush in water than in covering over his crayon work.

I finished the picture off just so he could see the full effect:

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The next version was a big hit! After coloring a rainbow of colors thickly on white paper, I told Travis we had to hide the rainbow under black crayon.

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We’ve been playing a lot of hide-and-go-seek lately, so he was very into the idea that his other colors were hiding (even though we could still sort of see them), and showed him how to scratch off the black crayon with a coin.

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He was so excited to reveal the colors underneath (“I see yellow!), even though the result wasn’t crystal clear. Overall, very exciting and “magical.”

Tape Pictures

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If your kid loves crayons, this is a neat way to vary the fun. In full honesty, Travis needed quite a lot of direction as we put the craft together, since the concept and method were new, but it still made for lots of fun, and filled a nice half hour of our morning.

To start, help your child tear masking tape into small pieces, and arrange however he or she would like on a piece of construction paper. Travis told me he was making “helicopters” and trucks,  piling his tape in big mounds, so I added a few extra pieces to space things out a little more.

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Likewise when it came time to color, Travis was making circles and blotches in small segments of the paper, so I showed him how to apply the color more evenly, including over the tape, for the best result.

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I made 2 versions of my own – one with his name and one with a helicopter – of course! – so he could fully appreciate the tape’s effect.

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Then it was time to peel the tape off! Travis loved this part, although it was quite difficult even for a grown-up to do without tearing the construction paper.

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Still, we ended up with very neat pictures to display on our fridge for a few days.

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Next time I would try the activity with markers and poster board for a sturdier final result.

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Memorial Day Boats

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Happy Memorial Day to all! Unfortunately our actual Monday is cloudy, but that didn’t stop us from enjoying the sunshine over Saturday and Sunday. The pool opened for the summer at our apartment building, so Travis and I used the opportunity to craft toy boats for the water.

Travis doesn’t drink juice; so far he doesn’t know any beverage exists other than water and almond milk, and I’m happy to keep it that way for a while! But if I have a craft that calls for juice boxes, I prefer to buy R.W. Knudsen or Apple and Eve.

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I use the apple juice boxes to make apple cinnamon oatmeal for a few mornings in a row (cook the oats in a mix of half water/half juice, and sprinkle with cinnamon before serving), and then we have empty boxes to play with.

In the morning, Travis “helped” me make the boats, very busy with his safety scissors and scotch tape while I cut triangles out of red and blue paper (I chose those colors in honor of the holiday). Easier than gluing, I just taped the two triangle portions together, and then taped one “sail” to each straw “mast.” I punched a hole in each of the juice boxes and popped the straw in – voila! A little sail boat.

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Travis was delighted to try the boats in a basin of water in the kitchen right after we assembled them, and we added Duplo people for extra fun.

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Bonus points – he was having so much fun sailing his boats that I had time to peruse the New York Times, a rarity!

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Then it was time to hit the pool… Travis was more cautious in the water than I expected, because he loved swimming last summer. But I guess it’s been so long he needed time to – literally – get his feet wet first. He preferred just to stand on the top pool step and push his boat around.

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We were joined by friends though, including a girl Travis’ age who loved throwing a boat in, and two older boys who came up with all sorts of games for them – blowing at the boats to “sail” them, using the straw sails as squirters, and tossing the boats far away to see who could swim to them fastest. So it seems we’ll have to return to this craft in future Memorial Day weekends, as the fun extends beyond the toddler years!