Activity: Walk the Plank Cardboard, paper, or a long, flat piece of wood Lay your plank or paper on a carpeted area inside or on the grass outside (about 6 inches wide and 5 feet long). Show your toddler how to walk on top of it, using arms held out for balance. Gross Motor Skills Balancing Throw in some imaginative play! Pretend the area around the plank has alligators, or if that is too scary, sticky syrup! Talk about what might be so special on the other side that you are willing to risk falling off the plank?
Activity: It s for the Birds Toilet paper roll, string, two small sticks, peanut butter, Cheerios, scissors Cut 4 holes near the bottom of the toilet paper roll, and let your little one help insert sticks through them to make a perching spot for birds. Cut a couple of holes in the top and tie a string to use as a hanger. Let your toddler spread peanut butter onto the roll and then roll it in cereal. Hang your feeder in a tree that can be seen from a window inside and watch for birds! CAUTION: Beware of peanut allergies. Fine Motor Skills There are many other bird feeder options. Another simple one is to hang a pine cone with peanut butter and birdseed on it. As birds come to dine, talk with your toddler about the birds, using descriptive words. Look at that robin with a red breast.
Activity: Sun Catcher Clear contact paper, tape, construction paper, scissors Tape clear contact paper (sticky side up) to the table and give your toddler construction paper. You can either help them cut out shapes or let them tear and cut their own designs out of construction paper. Show them to stick down the construction paper, then fold over the contact paper over or put another piece of contact paper on top and make a sun catcher. Fine Motor Skills Using safe child scissors, practice cutting skills with your little one. Draw lines on construction paper with a marker and encourage them to cut as close to the line as possible. CAUTION: This requires close supervision.
Activity: Scavenger Hunt Picture book or child s dictionary Let your child pick a picture from a book of a common object that can be found around the house, then together hunt for it together. Celebrate once it is found! Visual Discrimination Hide a few things in obviously wrong spots for example, put a t-shirt in the freezer. Walk around with your child and discover these strange hiding places. Discuss why it doesn t belong there and where it should go. Then together put the items back in the correct spot.
Activity: Red Light, Green Light Red and green construction paper When driving, point out to your child that the red on a traffic light means stop, and green means go. At home, follow up on this by playing a game with your little one explain that when you hold up the green paper, they should run. When you hold up the red paper, they should stop. Gross Motor Skills Use different colored construction paper to practice some more color recognition. Make fun movement to go with other colors for example, jump up and down with blue, or bark like a dog with yellow.
Activity: Follow the Leader No materials needed Play "Follow the Leader!" Walk on tip toes, walk backward, and walk slow or fast with big steps and little steps. Take the game outside and go around the swing set, under a tree branch, and hopping over rocks. Gross Motor Skills Another fun version is to play Simon Says. At the beginning, Simon always says what to do. The goal is to get your toddler to follow directions and practice gross motor skills. As they begin to understand the game, you can take out Simon and have your child decide whether or not to copy your movements.