Day 10: Toddler Activities

Javi is a little social butterfly. He thrives on interaction with other people, and for the most part is super happy and gets along great with other kids. He'd love it if we went somewhere every day and saw people.

I'm much more of a homebody, and my ideal day is staying home and working on projects. I make the effort to get out of the house because I know it helps Javi, but the reality right now is that we can't get out every day. Some days are just tired days, ya know?

So yesterday I worked on a list of activities that Javi and I can do together that are out of the ordinary, but not too difficult to accomplish in this stage of life. (This means that almost all of them can be done one handed, with a baby in the other arm!) Here's what I came up with:

• Playdough


• Watercolors


• Make roads for cars with masking tape on floor


• Blow up balloons and play volleyball


• Throw ice cubes onto cement and watch them break


• Cut up paper and use glue sticks to glue the pieces onto paper


• Make pizza dough (let Javi help!) and then let him play with the dough


• String pool noodles on a rope


• Stuff a water bottle with sticks


• Thread pipe cleaners through a colander


• Marshmallow shooters


• Blow bubbles


• Stamps and a stamp pad


• Dominoes - talk about colors, count dots, set them up and knock them over


• Tinkertoys


• Blokus


• Poker Chips (make towers, sort colors, make patterns)


• Hi Ho Cheerio

Pinterest can be overwhelming and frustrating sometimes, especially when it makes it seem that perfection is the "norm." But for something like this, coming up with ideas for toddler activities, it is the bomb. I spent about an hour looking for ideas yesterday, and now I have a fun list we can refer to when we need something to mix it up!