Blog: Toddlers

Welcome to another week of activities for toddlers during Durham’s stay-at-home order.

Fine Motor Invitation: Building and knocking over towers

This invitation is perfect for lightweight blocks or loose parts such as clean plastic yogurt cups. See what your child does with them. They may be excited to build towers and knock them over, or they may want to nest the cups, or fill them with other items.

Children start working with schemas (theories about how the world works) at a very young age. This open-ended invitation offers ways to explore connecting and disconnecting schemas, build motor skills and coordination, and an opportunity to experience the joy of knocking things over.

Art Invitation: Crayons and paperboard or cardboard

Paperboard (like that found in cereal and cracker boxes) and cardboard can be novel ways for toddlers to explore the mark-making potential of crayons. You can flatten the box, or leave it more three-dimensional for a different experience.

Learning the language of mark-making opens the door for creative expression. This is also an opportunity explore the different characteristics of paperboard and cardboard.

Large motor/mindfulness Invitation: Yoga

The toddler class at LACS really enjoys doing yoga together. You can find many resources online through the Durham County Library Hoopla app.

Yoga builds mind-body awareness, stretches muscles, and enhances balance and coordination.

Outdoor Invitation: Exploring Puddles

It looks like the weather might be wet today. If there are no thunderstorms, it’s the perfect time to put on a rain jacket and boots and explore what the world is like when it is wet.

Young children are natural scientists and a wet garden is full of interesting things to explore. They will also build large motor skills as they walk in boots and splash in puddles. Have rag towels waiting by the door for when you come in.

It’s Thursday! Yesterday was the average last frost date for Durham, NC. This is the time to plant many things in vegetable gardens, and it should be a lovely afternoon for messing around in the dirt.

Sensory/Fine Motor Invitation: Gardening

You can do this inside with some child-safe potting soil (some potting soils contain fertilizers which are not meant to be directly ingested by humans), or outside in the dirt. Plant seeds (seeds stay viable for several years), new plants, or transplant something. Toddlers can help digging holes, pushing seeds into the earth, and watering.

Working in the garden engages the natural scientist in young children while developing fine and large motor skills.

Art Invitation: Markers and paper

This classic invitation is especially engaging when you change the size of the paper, very tiny and very large paper each change children’s approach and experience with the materials.

Markers present an opportunity for creative expression, mark making, and fine motor development.

Music/Movement Invitation: “Ring Around the Roses”

Children love this classic movement song. At LACS, we like to sing two verses:

Ring around the rosie

pockets full of posies

ashes, ashes

we all fall down.

Cows are in the meadow,

eating buttercups.

Thunder! Lightening!

We all jump up!

Outdoor Invitation: Hula Hoops

You can sing and dance to the above song in the traditional way, holding hands and moving in a circle, or get out a hula hoop and hold on to that. What else can your toddler do with a hula hoop?