Raise your hand if you are in need of easy activities for your toddlers! (Shoots both hands in the air)
I tell ya, I am always on the hunt for fun activities for my kiddos, but ESPECIALLY during this time of social distancing. We blew through our usual favorites the first week (along with all of our quarantine snacks!). I thought now would be a great time to work some new activities into our rotation and also re-introduce some old and forgotten ones.
Where to find Easy Activities for Toddlers
So, where is the best place to find easy activities for your toddlers? Right here on my website, obviously! But if I don’t tickle your fancy, the next most obvious place is Pinterest. Pinterest is loaded with ideas. The trick is to keep tweaking your key word search until you find something that fits your mood. (Easy Activities for Toddlers, Activities for Kids, Crafts for Toddlers, Easy Experiments, Experiments for Toddlers, etc). Not all pages are optimized for every single key word, so switching it up helps find things you might not have otherwise found.
Another place I have found a lot of great ideas is my son’s preschool. His preschool is awesome! He is always coming home with super cute craft projects. I also help out occasionally during the school day, so I get to see the different games and projects they work on. I love to take those crafts, projects, and games and make them fit what my kids are into at any given moment.
Our babysitter/daycare is also amazing and super creative. I love using things she has done and make them my own.
10 Easy Activities for Toddlers
Contains affiliate links.
Water Beads
My kids love water beads. I found ours on Amazon (here).
When you open the box it is FULL of these tiny, colorful plastic pellets (think slightly smaller than a pea). It only takes a 1/4 cup or less each time, so one box will last quite awhile.
Soak the pellets in water for a few hours. This will cause the beads to swell up to the size of a marble. When the pellets/beads dry they shrink back down to their original size.
Warning: It requires WAY TOO MUCH supervision to keep my kids from getting these beads everywhere. In fact, I only pull them out when I have a big project I need to get done and I need them content and happily playing with something (or I want to earn parent bonus points). I usually have them play with them outside using our water table and/or in kitchen pans. I’ll put down a vinyl tablecloth and let them have at it. I hear of some people playing with these inside, but I prefer not to do that (I’m cool, but not that cool).
Ice Dig
This is a super easy activity for toddlers. My kids loved it. I ordered plastic bugs from Amazon (I knew I was going to use them for Wyatt’s “Bug Birthday” Party – check out more party themes here), but you could easily use any small plastic toys you already have at home.
This activity does take a little bit of planning because you have to have time for the water to freeze. Don’t just fill up a container with water, toss in some toys, stick it in the freezer and expect this to work well. The bugs (or whatever you choose to use) will all sink to the bottom and be in one layer. In order to have the bugs evenly dispersed, you have to freeze in layers.
First, put about a 1/2 inch of water in a container (I use a 9×13 pan) and place in the freezer for a few hours. Once frozen, toss a few bugs and a little bit more water, then freeze. Repeat several times until the container is full.
Once completely frozen, give the kids a small hammer and let them have at it.
Bird Feeders
Making bird feeders is such an easy and fun activity to do with young kids. Check out an earlier post titled How To Make Bird Feeders where I go into more detail on how to make 3 different styles of bird feeders.
Plant Seeds
If you know me at all you know I am OBSESSED with working in my yard. I am always looking for ways to get my kids excited about plants and growing things. They LOVE to help me plant, especially seeds.
Check out these Plant Activities for Preschool by Little Bins for Little Hands.
Cooking
Cooking with kids is difficult, but worth it. It requires A LOT of patience. It’s best if you accept ahead of time that everything will take 2x as long and be 3x as messy.
I know, I’m not really selling this whole “cooking with kids” thing, but I promise it’s worth it. Once kids feel comfortable in the kitchen they will be much more helpful and possibly start making things by themselves *gasp*.
Check out this article by Self Sufficient Kids titled Teach Kids to Cook by Age and Ability. Useful information on the best way to introduce cooking skills to your kids!
Balloon Tennis
I stole this idea from Wyatt’s preschool. It was too simple and too fun not to try at home.
Glue a stick to the back of a paper plate to make the paddle. Blow up a balloon and you are set to go. Balloon Tennis. My kids just loved hitting it around the house, but you could easily set up a crepe paper net and have a real game of balloon tennis.
Color Scavenger Hunt
This activity was one of the easiest activities to do. I used marker to make 9 different color blocks on a sheet of computer paper. I stuck a piece of scotch tape to each square to make things a little easier during our walk. With the tape already on the paper they could stick things to their paper as they found them. I told the kids we had to find something for every color. They had so much fun and we actually found every single color!
For a free scavenger hunt printable, check this out!
Letter Sound Scavenger Hunt
Since his last year of preschool was cut short, I want to be sure my son isn’t behind for Kindergarten. Every once in awhile on one of our walks we will focus on 1 letter and try to find things during our walk that start with that letter. I have read that being able to recognize letters and know each of their sounds is important for Kindergarten, so this is the perfect activity for that!
Ninja Training
I’m not sure where I first saw this activity, probably somewhere on Pinterest, but it is one of the easiest toddler activities of them all.
It works best in a long narrow hallway, but you can make do with what you have. Use crepe paper or blue painters tape to make laser beams back and forth across the hall way. The kids have to make it to the other side without touching the laser beams.
My son thought this was so fun! The perfect rainy day activity.
Squirt Chalk
This was the first time we tried squirt chalk. I used the squirt sidewalk chalk recipe from Growing A Jeweled Rose. The recipe itself worked very well, but I didn’t measure each of the bottles exactly, so the consistency on some of them was a little off. Other than that, the kids had fun, especially when they got to squirt vinegar all over the chalk at the end to make it fizzy.
Thanks for check out my 10 favorite easy activities for toddlers!!
Until next time,
Julie
