“Keep talking talking talking to your young pre-verbal toddlers and explaining everything and showing them stuff, and notice their reactions and any attempts to communicate, whether verbally or otherwise, and engage with them accordingly. Connecting and communicating with you is bound to be fascinating to them: you are very special to your child.”
– Sarah Fitz-Claridge
From the archives: The original posts were posted on 4th September 2001
Someone asked for creative ideas for indoor entertaining interesting innovative activity ideas for young pre-verbal toddlers. What follows are several parents’ excellent suggestions posted in 2001. As you try different activities with your very young child, notice what seems to interest that particular child. If you are not sure what it is about a given activity that is of interest to the child, make a guess about what the interest is, and given that guess, offer other things that are related to that interest. If those things turn out not to interest the child, could it be that your guess about what the child was finding interesting is incorrect? Keep experimenting to see if you can discover the child’s evolving interests, so that you can find new ways to engage with the child that the child finds interesting. Many toddlers are also interested in being in the midst of our adult lives, and like joining us in everything we are doing ourselves, whether it be cooking, cleaning, shopping, gardening, working, conversing with guests, etc. Show them and talk to them about everything around you, everything going on, and everything you are doing. Show and tell them how things work. Keep noticing what seems interesting to them and give them more of that, and things related to that that they might also find interesting. Keep talking talking talking to your young pre-verbal toddlers and explaining everything and showing them stuff, and notice their reactions and any attempts to communicate, whether verbally or otherwise, and engage with them accordingly. Connecting and communicating with you is bound to be fascinating to them: you are very special to your child.
More ideas? If you would like to add them in the comments, please do. 🙂
– Sarah Fitz-Claridge
Posted on 4th September 2001 by Michele D.:
A mother is trying to make her young toddler’s life as fun and interesting as possible, and sometimes finds her creativity to be lacking! She’d love to hear suggestions for fun, interesting, innovative, creative ideas for young pre-verbal toddlers (age 1-2 or so). What did/do your toddlers love to do? What were/are their favorite toys, books, games, activities? What did/do they find particularly entertaining? She’s specifically looking for indoor ideas—outdoors seems to be so inherently interesting that they’re never at a loss when they’re outside.”
Suggestions could include:
- helping ripping off the old magazine pages if you don’t mind the mess—they really love to hear the ripping sounds and crush them in balls
- using wipes plastic boxes to make towers or wooden blocks—toddlers love to build it up and then see it fall on the ground.
- use fingerpainting and long roll of paper that they can paint on the floor and get themselves messy
- play in your car—let them roll the windows down and up, turn on the wipers, music and etc.
- I’m trying to remember—it is so easy to forget about toddler years as they go by way too fast! Be sure to videotape your child when you can, so you can remember these days when they are gone.
MicheleD
Posted on 4th September 2001 by Ellen C.:
A mother is trying to make her young toddler’s life as fun and interesting as possible, and sometimes finds her creativity to be lacking!
Some ideas to try:
- Have child-sized things for child to use next to parent (duster, laundry basket, vacuum, broom)
- Stackable things
- A carriage for the child to push a toy around in can be fun
- Bowls of odd items to use tongs on
- Dump and pour activities
- Pillows to pile and sit on or jump on
- Blankets to build tents with around edges of furniture
- Large boxes to play in and decorate
- Sand or cornmeal or flour or rice to pour or run fingers through (can work well in very large tub that child can get into)
- Label things in the house with the words that say the name of the item (if child wants to see words)
- Balls of all sorts (footballs, weighted balls, ping pong balls, basketballs, etc.)
- Dress-up bins filled with all sorts of clothes and paraphernalia (garage sales are good to get them from)
- Paper (of all types, shapes, and sizes) and notebooks and notepads
- Pens, pencils, markers, crayons, paints, etc.
- Books—loads and loads of books
- Board books with easy-open board windows with pictures hiding in them can be great fun
- Books that “do” stuff
- Water
- Trucks that can push and carry different stuff (make roads on paper or cardboard)
- Blocks of all types (towers and knock down)
- Puzzles (can be made from magazine pictures or photographs by backing with cardboard)
- Story board type things (can be made of cardboard and scotch tape)
- Collages
- Play with fingerprints
- Sniff all sorts of herbs and spices together (watch out for cayenne)
- Making photo galleries or books with doors over photos
- Playing with machines that do stuff
- Use a box and make a feelie center (make a hole in it and put something in to feel; as child gets older, he or she or you can guess what it is)
- Helping to make stuff to cook (have a safe way for little one to work at same height as adult)
- Play dough (forever a good toy)
- Make a batch of bread dough, let it rise, and form interesting-shaped pretzels to bake
- Dolls or action figures with clothes to put on and take off
- Stuffed toys to do stories with
- Large paper clips for stringing together
- Plumbing pipe cut into pieces to put together
- Paper punch
- Scissors (Fiskars work well for kids, are serious scissors but are made blunt at the ends)
Have fun!
-Ellen
Posted on 4th September 2001 by Dawn:
A mother is trying to make her young toddler’s life as fun and interesting as possible, and sometimes finds her creativity to be lacking!
I thought Ellen’s suggestions were excellent. I would only add:
- Small, child-sized chairs for sitting in and pushing;
- Step stools next to bed and couch for climbing;
- Small, lightweight four-wheeled “bike” for “riding” and pushing;
- Stuffed animals and plastic animals (it’s extra fun to compare to animals in books);
- Diapers (newborn diaper covers work well) and clothes for stuffed animals;
- Sidewalk chalk (yes, indoors too—easy way for child to draw on floor, couch, table without leaving permanent marks);
- Cheap radio/cd player for child to operate (amazing how fast they figure it out);
- Drums, flutes, harmonica, ukulele, and other easy-to-play musical instruments;
- Low drawers full of fun stuff that child can open, sift through, and dump;
- Nesting dolls;
- Anatomically correct dolls;
- Bubbles;
- Fun finger food (berries, “o” cereal, cooked carrot, cheese cubes) on a low table;
- Potty;
- Magazines with pictures of animals (National Geographic) or babies (Mothering) that child can look at and tear up;
- Wallet with old library cards and play money;
- Other toddlers for brief visits (good to have duplicates of the favorite toys);
- Ring-around-the-rosy;
- Itsy, bitsy spider;
- This little piggy;
- Teddy bear, teddy bear turn around…;
- Dancing to music (reggae is a favorite for several toddlers I know);
- Tickle/chase games (take turns chasing and being chased);
- Jumping and falling on the bed;
- Naming/pointing to body parts (lots of books can help here);
- Duplo;
- Puzzles with pegs and pictures underneath;
- Sitting in the sink and washing dishes with parent;
- Sitting on the counter and measuring flour while parent bakes;
- Banging on the computer keyboard;
- And on and on and on. Toddlers are a helluva lot of fun.
Hope this is useful.
Michele D. wrote:
Be sure to videotape your child when you can, so you can remember these days when they are gone.
This reminded me of a toddler I know who LOVED watching hirself on videotape. S/he was totally tickled by the experience, and would fetch the videocamera bag when s/he wanted to do more taping/watching. (The cameras with an LCD screen that can point the same way as the lens are ideal for this, since the child can see hirself in real time.)
Fun, fun, fun.
-Dawn.
Posted on 4th September 2001 by Maria D.:
- Touch screen for a computer (any touch of the screen works as a mouse click) plus computer games (slide shows with favorite pictures, Living Books, Reader Rabbit Toddler…)
- Heaps (clothes, flour, pillows, toys)—anything put in a big heap is usually fun, sorting etc. appeal to some…
- Climbing furniture, pillow labyrinths, parents…
- Animals—think about fostering a small dog if you do not want to commit for life.
- “Grown-up” art books—Monet, Escher, Dali worked for us; YMMW 🙂
- Music, making noisemakers, percussion instruments, electronic instruments…
- Attaching things to each other (a general idea—teddy on a rope, chair tied to the tabletop, anything hanging from the ceiling, say a tennis ball to hit…)
- BOXES—TV for hiding inside and playing house, small boxes for making houses for toys, baskets for collecting, etc. More fun when there are many
- Look at Montessori stuff for inspiration. Teaching Montessori in the Home book is OK
- A long (3-5 yards) broad (1 foot) wooden board. Seriously, a board was a lot of fun to us and still is one of the best toys at the age of 3. You can walk on it on the floor, put it at an angle on a pillow, make a see-saw out of it, put toys on it, etc.
- At around two, QX3 electronic microscope was LOTS of fun for a toddler I know 🙂
Maria
See also:
- Cleaning as you go or cleaning in one go
- Coercively protecting children
- Do children taken seriously ever ask permission?
Sarah Fitz-Claridge, Ellen C., Michele D., Dawn, Maria D., 2001, ‘Fun ideas for young toddlers’, https://takingchildrenseriously.com/fun-ideas-for-young-toddlers