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First Cutting Activity: Play Dough

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There’s a reason that cutting projects are a go-to at nursery schools and preschools; scissors are fantastic for honing fine motor skills. So today it seemed time for Veronika’s first cutting activity, using the safest material I could think of: play dough!

First, I simply set out new play dough for play, but I focused on making shapes that could easily be cut later. That meant rolling up lots of “snakes” and “hot dogs”.

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I gave her a “hot dog” and a pair of safety scissors, and showed her where to put her fingers in the holes so the scissors would open and close. Obviously she’s young for this, so it turned into more of stabbing at the pieces. But she was so proud.

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“I’m cutting!” she reported. Whenever big brother Travis took a turn with the scissors, she immediately asked for them back, very aware that this was the task she wanted to tackle.

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It helped if I placed the scissors upright over one of our “snakes”, and then all she had to do was squeeze them shut.

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Mostly, I sat back and let her experiment. More precise cutting will come with time, and no doubt we’ll try out another material for cutting practice soon.

 

Pretend Car Wash

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Veronika’s favorite cartoon right now features a tractor that gets muddy and dirty. With just a few craft supplies, we could replicate the idea right in the kitchen!

I drew car shapes on craft foam (using a very simple profile of a car since that was easier than a tractor), and cut them out.

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I then gave Veronika the “cars” along with a few sponges, and a shallow basin filled with warm soapy water. Note: I used baby shampoo, to avoid tears if she rubbed at her eyes, but dish soap would work, too.

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Place everything on a towel to nix the possibility of slippery spills and to make clean-up a cinch. Then I showed Veronika how to scribble over the cars with marker. “Oh no!” I said in pretend dismay. “The cars are getting muddy! They’re covered in dirt.”

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She parroted right along, catching on to the game and coloring “dirt” over the cars.

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Now it was time for a car wash! Show your toddler how to dip a sponge in the soapy water and then scrub on the craft foam. The washable markers come right off, even without much scrubbing, so Veronika was soon rewarded with squeaky clean cars.

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And then of course she wanted a repeat!

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You can also anticipate lots of fun simply squeezing water out of the sponges, splashing cars through the soapy water, and playing with the car shapes after you’ve toweled them dry.

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Hide the Beanbag

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This is a great game to help toddlers understand the concepts of being visible versus hidden. All you need is a beanbag or two!

You can technically play anywhere, but when I originally tried the game using furniture and pillows in a big room, Veronika wasn’t interested.

Of far greater interest to her was playing the game in her dollhouse. I think the smaller space made it more tangible.

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We would hide a beanbag inside or under a piece of the dollhouse furniture, although “hide” was a relative term. I always left some of the beanbag visible, which made the skill level just right for a toddler. She would move the furniture aside with a big flourish and I would announce, “You found it!”

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Then she started “hiding” the beanbags herself. She placed a piece of furniture over one, then moved it herself.

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“I found it!”

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Now that she had the idea, she ran off to hide the beanbag elsewhere in the house.

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This game is a great early form of hide-and-seek!

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Paint with Water

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If you have a toddler who wants to paint, but you’re either some place where paint isn’t available or would be too messy, here is the perfect trick: paper towels + marker + water.

I drew a picture for Veronika on a paper towel using thick lines of black marker. The image featured a truck, since right now she’s obsessed with all things that Go!

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I showed her how to dip a paintbrush in water, swipe it along the black line, and “paint” the picture.

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The water will make the marker color spread on the paper towel. It’s particularly neat because the black separates out into a spectrum, leaving blue and purple hues behind too. So your toddler might really think he or she is adding color!

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Veronika loved the way this looked, painting along the truck, the road, the sun, and more.

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So in sum, this “painting” activity is simple but fun, with a cute resulting work of art.

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Napkin Bug

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This silly little “bug” wiggles, rolls, skitters across the carpet, and otherwise delights toddlers. Because it comes together in moments with items you can have on hand anywhere, it’s the perfect toy to entertain a toddler on vacation.

Wrap up anything circular (like an apple, an orange, a grapefruit, or even a small toy ball) by placing it in the middle of a paper towel. Gather the paper towel over the sphere and twist the ends so they are like two arms. Secure the arms with either yarn or a rubber band.

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Add a nice big smile with marker!

Veronika thought this “bug” as so silly, especially when she held it by the arms.

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She loved watching it roll!

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In all honesty it didn’t hold Veronika’s attention as long as I thought it might, but it’s easy to tuck away and then pull out again the next time your toddler is bored.

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It’s the cutest bug on the rug, that’s for sure!

Draw and Tell

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As your budding artist begins to make deliberate scribbles and doodles, not just random lines on paper, it’s fun to teach a toddler how to tell a story with pictures. Choose a classic tale, draw it simply on paper, and invite your little one to draw along with you!

Today, Veronika and I did a visual retelling of the Three Little Pigs.

I grabbed white paper and crayons, and began telling her the story. As we came to each character or plot point, I added basic drawings: silly circular pigs and basic shapes like squares and triangles to show the houses.

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She giggled at the illustrations and – as I had hoped! – she soon jumped right in.

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“I’m drawing piggies!” she said. “I’m drawing shapes!”

Your toddler might not draw anything that actually has to do with the story (Veronika then said she was adding a clock), but it’s a great exercise to help little ones realize that the lines they make can represent things.

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This game would be fun with just about any classic children’s story. Or you can even make up your own tale with your child as the star!

Find the Color

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I love throwing a little learning into even vacation days with a toddler, and here is a game that you can literally play anywhere. Simply ask your child to find something of a certain color, then start counting dramatically down from 10 to 0 until they run and touch it.

I demonstrated for Veronika the first time through, naming the brown clock and then doing a big happy run over to it. Ten, nine, eight…

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She giggled and wanted to play along. Could she touch orange?

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Could she touch green?

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Yes!

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You can see how easy and obvious the game is, which means it can easily occupy fussy toddlers just about anywhere.

I Think I Can

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Here’s a great activity to teach toddlers confidence as they learn new skills. In general, I love cultivating a “yes I can” attitude in my kids. And now more than ever, in this coronavirus-era, it’s a life skill that serves everyone well: my toddler, my big kid, and me as a grown-up!

To make the lesson toddler-appropriate, we started with a read of The Little Engine That Could. Now, the “I think I can” refrain was at the forefront of Veronika’s mind.

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After enjoying the story, it was time to encourage her to do big girl stuff. “Can you touch your toes?” I asked her, and then reminded: “I think you can, I think you can. I think you can.” She can!

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She could also tap her head, or spin around, or various other instructions I gave.

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You can play this game with all sorts of age-appropriate challenges. If you really want to brainwash your kids, make the game part of clean up. “Can we clean up all the game pieces?” I asked. “I think we can, I think we can, I think we can.”

We could!

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And of course, you’ll want to trot out this game in more serious scenarios for years to come. Whether a first day of school or a first time trying something new at a playground, your little one will start to repeat this mantra and believe it.

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Walking Through the Jungle

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Stuffed animals lend themselves so perfectly to imaginative play. Here are a few ways that Veronika and I turned our home into a jungle with them today!

We started out with a fun nursery rhyme. For each verse, swap in the name of a stuffed animal and the noise it makes. So, for example:

Walking through the jungle,

What did I see?

A baby monkey laughing

At me, me me.

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We repeated for a bear growling and an owl hooting.

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In between verses, we stomped like were on a jungle mission. Here was a slippery snake hissing! Encourage lots of animal noises or motions to mimic each particular animal.

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To continue the fun, stage a classic animal “safari” afterwards. Hide a few stuffed animals and have fun finding them with a flashlight just before bedtime.

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Big brother Travis loved being the animal hider, and guiding Veronika and her flashlight to the right spots in the room.

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Again, make lots of animal noises as you spot each one! We finished with a read of Way Far Away on a Wild Safari and used a flashlight on each page to “find” the animals.

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Today it was definitely a jungle out there.

Water Beads Sensory Bin for Boats

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How had I possibly forgotten about water beads? They’re one of the greatest ways to keep a toddler busy plus engage them in sensory play, but I literally had forgotten they exist. Well, a friend happened to remind me, and it was high time for Veronika to get her first experience with this awesome material.

If you’re not familiar with water beads, they start out the size of about a mustard seed, but expand overnight into marble-sized squishy balls. Look for them in the floral section of craft stores. As with all small, round objects, supervise play closely to avoid choking.

I soaked the water beads in a bin and then in the morning we added… boats! I thought the maritime theme would be perfect for summer.

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Veronika loved that she could sail the boats through the beads. She also loved loading the beads into one boat and then pouring them into another.

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At first our bin didn’t exactly look like an ocean since I had all the colors of the rainbow. I started to separate out just the blues and greens. It was starting to look a bit more like the Atlantic…

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I didn’t finish the task, though, because then Veronika wanted the cup I was filling with the non-ocean colors so she could practice her pouring and scooping.

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She then started carrying some of the beads around in the cups, at which point I had to direct her back to the bin. Because yes, the one problem with water beads is that they get real messy if you let them escape!

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