Activities to try with your child!
Imaginative play to sensory activities, puzzles and messy play to quiet reading, we have it all! These have all been tried and tested with an actual toddler!
If you have any specific requests, just get in touch. Please feel free to share the activities with other parents and carers you think might find them useful. Happy playing!
Puzzles
Whatever age your kids are, there is bound to be a puzzle for them. Spend time together making the puzzles. If you’ve already done all the puzzles in your house, either do them again, or make your own!
All you need is some paper, pencils and scissors. Draw your puzzles pieces first, then draw/paint the image and cut it out! You’re all set!
If you’re toddler has drawn/painted the design, you may want to take a photo before cutting it up so you remember what it should look like. Older children can make their own, as easily or complex as they like.
Ice Activity
It’s really easy and simple to do!
Simply add some food colouring to water and freeze it. We did this with basic ice cube tray.
We then made a second batch where we added the food colouring, placed some small toys inside the water and then froze them. I added some toy animals (e.g. crab, dinosaurs, etc) and some Thomas Minis too. As these needed a bit more space, I used some small Tupperware containers instead of the ice tray.
The next day, we took them out and actually did the activity. It was basically a simple case of exploring the ice cubes. We talked about the colours and what happened as the ice slowly began to melt and the coloured water started to mix. We had a fantastic discussion about colour mixing and how to make different colours as a result.
My son was impatient to get his toys out and for the ice to melt, so that led to a separate discussion about how to make ice melt and experimenting with adding some warm water to the ice to help it along.
Finally, you can also add some shaving foam to the ice. I had it in a separate container and my son added it when he wanted, but this would also be a nice activity to do with the shaving foam directly on the ice cubes. You can also add some food colouring to the shaving foam to make it more exciting.
A somewhat messy activity, but which led to lots of interesting questions, experimentation, language development and critical thinking. It also kept him busy for an hour, so well worth it!
Alphabet Stamps
This is a literacy-based activity with the help of some fun alphabet stamps. I bought these from Sainsbury’s for £3, but I think they are available from a range of other shops too. There are a number of different ways you can use them:
- Allow your child to simply become familiar with the act of stamping. The simple fact of learning how to manipulate and handle the stamps is great for their fine motor skills;
- Letter recognition – encourage your child to say the name of the letter as they stamp it. You can also call out a letter for your child to correctly find and stamp;
- Phonics – repeat the activity as above, but rather than saying the letter name, say the sound it makes;
- Words beginning with… – as your child stamps a particular letter, ask them to think of words which start with that particular letter;
- Write simple (CVC) words – if your child is familiar with the letter of the alphabet and their associated phonics sound, you could encourage them to sound out simple three-letter words and write them down using their stamps. For example, ‘get’. Sound out each individual phoneme – G-E-T- and ask your child to stamp each correct letter as you go. Don’t forget to blend all the sounds together at the end! You can also do this with more challenging words, including words with digraphs (e.g. T-R-AI-N) for older children. This is a particularly nice activity if your child has fine motor skill challenges, but a secure grasp of phonics.
- Read (CVC) words – instead of asking your child to stamp the words, you stamp a CVC word (e.g. cat, hat, sit, pat, tap, top, hot, mop) and ask your child to read it out. Again, you can repeat this with more challenging words for older children.
This is a really versatile and fun resource. We’ve really enjoyed it and it has been a lovely activity to do together, as well as one which my son has enjoyed exploring independently. Be sure to keep an eye on where they stamp, otherwise you could find your walls, tables or floor covered in letters!
Worms
This is a messy one, but a lot of fun too.
What you need:
- Soil,
- Spaghetti,
- Pink/red food colouring.
Cook some spaghetti and cut it into pieces of varying lengths so that it resembles worms. Add some pink/red food colouring and stir. Then, put some soil in a tray and add your spaghetti worms in!
It’s particularly realistic if you mix them in a bit so that they are covered in the soil. You can also add some leaves, twigs, pine-cones etc to make it more fun if you like. It’s a great sensory activity but can also be brilliant for developing language and imaginative play. We added a few toys into ours, which lead to almost an hour’s worth of play.
Add toys, water or even shaving foam to make the activity even more messy and fun.
The Cardboard Box
Yes, it’s that simple. The bigger the box, the better.
Let your child lead the play and follow along. This box has been with us for a few months now. It has been a hiding place, a car, a spaceship, a storage box… It’s also been used to draw on and it was quite a fun place to use the alphabet stamps on too and spell out words.
One of the best things about it is that it lends itself to some really beautiful imaginative play, as well as being an independent activity.
Balancing
Balancing is an important motor skill for little people to develop and not as easy as we might think. Luckily, helping your child to develop balancing skills doesn’t mean you have to spend lots of money. Some string, rope or masking tape is all you need!
The great thing about this activity is you can do it inside or outside. Simply lay some string/rope down and ask your child to walk over it. You can also use masking tape, but check if doesn’t damage your floor before using it.
Encourage and help your child to put one foot in front of the other and to hold out their arms to help them balance. Start off with a single straight line. As they become more confident and capable, you can include some turns. You can give them a sticker or a treat when they manage to do it, or even turn it into a fun competition between all members of the family.
It’s also a great opportunity for learning about shapes. You could make 2D shapes on the floor and your child can balance as they walk along each of the sides.
Start with a straight line and build up to creating shapes for your child to balance along.
You can also look for opportunities to balance outdoors. For instance, there might be a low beam in the playground your child can walk along, or a log or even walking along a brick wall.
Imaginative Play
In the spirit of learning through play, engage in some imaginative play with your child!
Follow your child’s interests and create a mini-world to play in. One of the best things about imaginative play is that it actually requires very little in the way of physical objects. You can also use other objects to stand in for buildings, planets and so on. Of course, you can always draw/paint a set on some paper or card to create your own imaginative world.
Our stickle brick train explored the house and collected ‘passengers’ throughout the corridor…
Trains are a firm favourite in our house. They’ve been known to explore mountains, volcanos, travel through time to visit the dinosaurs and even blast off into space to explore new planets and see the stars. Apart from a physical toy train, the rest of the ‘set’ or locations were mostly pieces of furniture – the sofa, a chair, a ball or even the pages of a picturebook. We even created our own train tracks, using just paper and a pen.
Leaf Monsters
These are a nice cross-over between autumn and Halloween. Use autumn coloured paints (red, orange, yellow, brown and green) and paint your leaves. It can be really nice to involve your child in selecting the colours and explaining why they are choosing each one and why not others (e.g. not blue because leaves don’t turn blue etc.)
Paint your leaves with any implement of your choice. You can use paintbrushes, cotton wool, tissue or finger painting. Leave them to dry and the next day use some PVA glue to add googly eyes to your leaf monsters. Allow your child to be as creative as they like with the number of eyes. Finish off by adding smiles/mouths using felt tips or marker pens.
Leaf Printing
Paint some of your autumn leaves using autumnal colours. Press them onto some card or plain paper to make a leaf print. You can then cut this out. In order for this activity to work, you may want to use acrylic paints instead and make sure that you apply plenty of paint to your leaf. We tried it with regular poster paint and had mixed results.
Make a Leaf Bowl
You’ll need to make some salt dough for this activity. I use this recipe which always works well. Make sure that you also have a large autumn leaf to make it easier to do. Once you have your salt dough ready, roll it out and place the leaf on top, pressing slightly. Cut around the leaf, so you are left with a lovely leaf shape!
Gently wrap your salt-dough leaf around the bottom of a bowl to make it curved and bowl-shaped. Now, cook the salt-dough leaf bowl in the oven for 2 hours, or place it in the microwave for 3 minutes (checking regularly), until it is cooked and becomes hard. You can then paint your autumn leaf bowl the next day. You’ll have a lovely creation and somewhere to put your keys!
Mummy Talk and Coffee 