Tips to Keep Your Toddler Engaged While Staying at Home From the Experts in Sugar Hill
Posted On: July 24, 2020 By Jim Newton
During stay-at-home orders and beyond, keeping your toddler engaged for the majority of the day sometimes seems like a gargantuan feat. There’s a reason the saying goes “it takes a village to raise a child.”
Sometimes, it feels like one parent or even two is not enough to keep your toddler entertained long enough for you to complete household chores or work from your home office, and we haven’t even mentioned alone time yet!
To help out the stressed-out, bored, or just plain “out of ideas” parents out there, we’ve put together a list of tips to keep your toddler engaged. Some of these activities require more one-on-one attention, others can be done while you’re working in the same room, but all of them are sure to keep your child entertained for hours.
Learning Activities
Being a parent to toddlers isn’t just about having fun and hearing the word “no” all the time. It’s also about preparing your children for school. Although it may seem like it’s so far away, that fateful fall day will come before you know it. Since you’re stuck at home anyway, why not mix fun with a little learning?
Shape Sorting with Blocks
Learning shapes is incredibly important for toddlers, and it’s easy to make your own shape sorter. All you need is a container with a plastic lid (such as an oatmeal container) and blocks of different shapes. Cut a round hole and a square hole in the top of the container, seal it, and be present while your toddler sorts the blocks by shape.
Learning Colors with Pompoms
This activity is not only educational and safe, but it’s quiet too! All you need are different colored bowls and pompoms, tape, and several toilet paper rolls colored (or papered over) to match the bowls. Tape the tubes vertically to the wall, place the matching bowls beneath, and teach your child their colors by having them drop the right pompom down the right tube.
Let Them Help You
This is perhaps the greatest way to keep your toddler engaged: by including them in your everyday activities. If you don’t have to work, let your child be present and assist as you cook, clean, and do other household chores within reason. Toddlers can learn to set the table, mix ingredients with a spoon, or even wash the dishes.
Creative Activities
Creativity and expression are incredibly important throughout a toddler’s development. They are learning who they are and developing their personality, all the while working to build language, motor, and other important life skills. Encourage your child to be who they are with these three creative activities you can do at home.
Playdough
Playdough is a fantastic way for children to have fun, develop their fine motor skills, and be creative at the same time. Using store bought or homemade playdough, you can encourage your toddler to learn their colors and build shapes, or just enjoy smashing playdough globs.
Finger Painting
One clean and easy alternative to traditional finger painting is to pour paint into a plastic bag, seal it relatively airtight, and tape the bag to a window or a wall. Your toddler can “paint” the bag to their heart’s content without ever leaving a mess!
Pipe Cleaners Galore
Pipe cleaners are a fantastic way to teach your toddler both fine motor skills and colors. Some different activities your toddler can enjoy with pipe cleaners include:
- sticking the ends pipe cleaners into a plastic colander
- weave pipe cleaners through the holes of your colander and enjoy as they try to pull the pipe cleaners out
- sorting pipe cleaners by color in bowls or on a tray
- poking sectioned (2” pieces) of pipe cleaner through a paper towel roll or parmesan container
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For Further Questions, Concerns, or Ideas, Check Out Our Blog
The Great Beginnings Child Care and Learning Center, located in Sugar Hill, GA, is dedicated to enhancing your child’s development and wellbeing to the fullest extent. While everyone is stuck at home in these unprecedented times, it’s more important than ever that your toddler be able to partake in educational, creative, and imaginative activities.
For more information on our programs, our blog, or to schedule a tour, give us a call today.