How to do Kid Activities with Toddlers in the Mix

Any mum with a toddler knows you’ve got to keep them busy! At this stage they are very curious little people and have a ton of energy. I am blessed to have at home with me three toddlers. Chook 3.5 years old and twins, Strawberry and Ooffa 2 years old.

I love doing a variety of activities with my children. But I often face the challenge of providing an activity that they all can do at the same time. I am also facing the challenge of extending activities to cater for Chook’s preschool activities. If you can relate to these challenges, here are some ideas that are working for us that you might find helpful.

Getting Started

I find it helpful to start our activity time with a few finger plays, rhymes and songs. I find this gives the younger ones some of your sole attention. An older child could be given the option of joining in or setting up for the next activity whilst the younger child is engaged with finger plays. We end the finger play session with a cuddle and reading of a story.

Related: Find all the most delightful things to do with toddlers on the Toddler Years Must do list.

Sometimes Strawberry and Ooffa don’t want to join in with the book, so I always have available a few select toys from our toy rotation called ‘Walk Away Toys’. These are toys that engage the children enough that my presence is not always needed. 

Doing a collage on a piece of contact paper

Top Activities for This Young Group

Our top four playful learning activities that we can do together and are easily extended are:

• Collages on contact paper
• Play dough
• Threading onto pipe cleaners
• Sticker pictures

Tips:

• Each toddler needs their own table space.
• Provide each toddler with their own materials.
• Do activities outside when-ever you can.
• More challenging activities for an older toddler or child, needing one-on-one supervision, can be done when littles are napping.
• However, older kids and toddlers often are perfectly happy and able to extend one of these simple activities, for instance: making a card for Grammy out of their art, creating a habitat for their plastic animals out of the play dough, telling a story about their sticker picture or making a dress-up crown or bracelet.

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