Number Game: Count - Match - Stick

After our first counting activity, the Pompoms and Muffin Tray Counting activity, I figured the Mini loves counting! So, to keep up with his interest, I planned to do more of such easy to set up and fun activities that involved counting.

So before we go over to the activity, wanted to share an awesome hack I found out recently. I have had an eye on the easel paper roll that is most commonly used for toddler art and craft work. I love the long roll of paper that can be cut to any size and spread over on the floor or wall. But honestly I found the easel paper rolls that are available in India a bit too expensive for my kind of use! I was on the lookout for something more economical. On a recent visit to a packaging and paper cups/plates store, I found this long roll of paper that he was selling. It was meant to be used a dining table liner at functions and parties. It looked longer than a regular easel paper roll only slightly thinner. Also, it was more greyish than white, but who cared. It costed only Rs.70! Without a second thought, I bought it and there you see is our very own easel paper roll for our very many activities and fun times ahead ! :)

So, coming back to this activity, I used a strip of my version of the easel paper roll, a marker pen, sticky notes and our favorite white board. It took me all of 10 minutes to set it up and kept the little one entertained and occupied for about 30 minutes! :)

Maze Walk Animal and Animal Pattern Match

We love maze games, we have done a few in the past like this one and I have noticed mazes always delight my little boy. Simple maze games are a great way to encourage toddlers to follow instructions, a procedure, improve their body balance and most importantly... they are a lot of fun!!

So in this maze game, we used a few cards from our Animal and Animal Patterns matching card game. We used just the animal patterns cards from the game and instead of the corresponding cards with the animals, we used our little toy animals to make it more fun!

I just made a little maze using our foam ABC blocks, kept all the pattern cards at one end of the maze and the toy animals at the other end of the maze. I asked my little guy to pick one animal at a time from the start of the maze, walk on the foam block maze to reach the other end and place the animal on its corresponding animal pattern card. 

He had to then go back to the start, pick another animal and down the maze again to match it... he did this till he matched all the animals and animal patterns!

Shape Sorting Fishing Game| Toddler Games

When the Mini was littler, I had bought this set of lacing buttons and rope toy for him. He showed absolutely no interest and so they just sat at the back of his toy shelf for a long long time. Recently, an idea struck me and I decided to re-purpose the shape discs from the lacing set for a fun little game that I was sure will be a hit with him.... and it was!! :)

He loves his shapes and colours and a complete water baby who loves water play! So putting these together, I set up this Shape Sorting Fishing game for him. All I used for this game, was a big plastic container filled with water, the coloured shape discs from the lacing set and a strainer from his beach set! It took me all of 2 minutes to set this up and kept him busy for a long time, as he wanted to do it over and over again! And I was just happy that I could re-purpose an ignored old toy!! :)

Maze Shape Sorting Game

This was one fun activity we did a few months ago. It needs just 5 minutes of prep work and you are all set to have loads of fun for a good amount of time. It aids them to concentrate and multi-task and they need to walk on the ramp and also sort the items based on the shape. It tingles their little brains a bit and also give those tiny legs a little work out ion the process! :D

My boy is very fond of shapes and loves identifying shapes in everyday items. He has a few shape based puzzle and toys. This little game actually uses the pieces of a simple wooden shape sorter toy that he has in which there are little wooden pieces of 4 different shapes and colours that need to be sorted and inserted based on shape, onto a stand that has tiny sticks to hold the shapes in place. If you do not already have a shape sorter toy, you can use anything else that you have at hand or you could just cut out pieces of chart paper into different shapes and colours.

This game was an absolute hit with my Mini. He wanted to do it a few times over! Hope your little one enjoys it too :)

DIY Jigsaw Puzzle from an Existing Jigsaw Puzzle

 

If your Mini is as crazy as mine is about jigsaw puzzles, then this one is for you! 

I noticed my little one's fondness for puzzles right from a very early age. I introduced him to knob and chunky puzzles at around 16 months and he immediately took to them. He would ask for them everyday and keep himself busy solving them. And then slowly we moved onto 2-3 pieces jigsaw puzzles at around 22 months. By the age of 25 months he was loving solving 9-12 pieces puzzles. 

Apart from these little jigsaw puzzles, we also have a couple of floor puzzles which are 24-36 pieces and the Mini and I do them together every now and then. Very recently, at the age of 33 months, he has begun doing these bigger puzzles all by himself. It is such a joy to watch him get so engrossed in finding and fixing the pieces of the puzzle together and the delight in his eyes when he completes the puzzles! :)

We have a good collection of jigsaw puzzles to suit my little boy's interests. Vehicles being his primary interest, most of our puzzles are based around them. He loves doing them over and over again and is not yet bored of any of them! I however felt, a little bit of variety would help and so wanted to try adding in more range to our current set of puzzles.

I came across this idea of drawing a picture on plain puzzle pieces and actually making your own personalised jigsaw puzzles! I wanted to try that too only, I did not know where to find plain jigsaw pieces. One day, it just occurred to me that most of the puzzles that we have, are plain at the bottom! I could just flip over the puzzle and use the bottom side to create my own jigsaw puzzle there.... and so that what I did! :D 

I used the backside of two of our little 12 pieces wooden jigsaw puzzles to make new puzzles. I drew some basic shapes with different coloured markers on one and wrote numbers from 1-12 on the other. The little guy is happy with these new additions to his puzzles collection :)

 

ABC Fishing Game

Now, which kid doesn't like water play!? Well, I know mine loves it! :) Splishing and splashing... he can be in water all day, if allowed! :D I have read, that water play has a good calming affect on children. I have actually noticed that with my little boy. All hid bad mood just vanishes the moment he is in his bath! Its such a delight to watch him enjoy in his little tub.

So the other day, I decided to put together his love for water and ABCs and made up this fun little game of ABC Fishing! Yes, there is a fair bit of cleanup required after such water play... but hey, what is childhood if not for such little fun memories!

It took me 5 minutes to set this up for him. I used up the little plastic ABCs from a peg board set, some foam ABCs from a puzzle and a little sieve from our beach play set for this game. So basically all things that were already available with us.

So, this is almost a zero prep game... OK let me say minimal prep game. Go on now... get your Mini playing! :)

Jumping Ropes Obstacles Course

My little fellow loves to crawl through and jump over things. Under the sofa, over the sofa, under the bed, under the dining table, scramble through our legs! A little cheeky monkey we have! :)

Puzzles and ABCs are his other obsessions. He can keep himself busy with these all day. So combining all these little interests of his, I set up this mini obstacles game. It took me just about 10 minutes to set this up! 

This has been his favourite game so far. We did this two times together and I was done for the day! But the Mini asked for it again in the evening and did the full course twice more! Well not complaining, but this time I just chose to be a cheerleader! Phew!

The little obstacles that I set up for this course seem super simple but for tiny little being who are still mastering their balancing skills, this is huge! I loved to see this little fellow make his way through the rope hurdles and gleefully smile when he made it form one end to the other.

Amidst all the fun, the workout those little legs get by playing this game is significant. A whole lot of coordination comes into play through the entire game. And overall, the joy of jumping around with your mini is a joy you have to experience to understand! :) 

So get up and get jumping with those little monkeys of yours!

Read on to know how we played this game...

Balancing Book on Head

It's so awesome how easy it is to laugh when you have a child for company. Some of the best moments with my boy are moments like these. The ones filled with giggles! Memories are sweetest when they are sprinkled with fun silly moments and I want to create loads of such memories with my  little boy. 

I attempted to play the balancing game with board books with the cheeky little Mini, ended up just having lots of fun in the process! The little fellow was super amused to see his Mumma walking around with a book on her head. 

Kids love to imitate and so he tried his best to imitate my balancing act, but so adorably failed! :D 

The actual act of balancing an item on the head betters your posture and thereby improves your overall body balance, but with a toddler, the whole point was to just have fun and not really focus on getting the balancing right. And as you can see, a whole lot of fun was had! :)

Watch our goofiness here!

Toy Cars Colours Sort

If your mini is as crazy about vehicles as mine is, here is a simple fun colour sorting game you can get them to play! They get to do what they love doing... playing with their little trucks and cars while also learning the different colours!

Just to perk up the fun factor, I added in a 'road' using some foam puzzle pieces. The Mini (a miniature version of a me, with regards to orderliness!) obsessed over the 'road' each time it came apart during the process of play! It was super cute watching him set it right and resume the play only after it was as per his satisfaction.

Here he is zooming away his miniatures onto their respective colour coded parking lots!

Read on to know how we played the game...

Hoppy Hoppy Colour Match

And we are back with yet another fun toddler game! So this particular game has two main advantages:

• Toddler entertainment.
• Mommy workout!

So all you mommies needing a workout but do not have time away from mommying, get down there and play this game with your little ones! :D

I noticed my son loves it when I get down there and participate in the play with him instead of just explaining how it's done and asking him to play. Also, the energy level is super high these days, I need to channelise it productively! Also, lately colour matching interests him a lot, next only to identifying letters.

So, to cater to all these little aspects, I set up this little colour match game in our balcony. It just needs a few colourful plastic balls and tiny colourful baskets. The game caught my little guy's attention and we had a fun filled hoppy time playing this!

Watch us hop around and play in the video at the end of the post. After a few rounds of playing, you can see the mini's hopping turns into scraping against the wall! :D 

Yup it definitely was tiring! That day, mommy needed a nap too! :)

Here is us hopping away and having fun:

Read on to know how we played this game...

Stacking and Target Practice Game

About two weeks back, just about half hour or so to his bed time, my little boy and I were playing with his foam puzzles. These are ABC foam puzzles that interlock just like regular jigsaw puzzles and which can be attached from all four sides and so can be made into different shapes and 2 structures. 

So after playing with them as usual, we were sort of bored and that's when I got an idea of stacking it all up and getting my little guy to throw a soft ball at the structure with the aim to tumble it down! Ah, sounded fun when the idea played in my head! 

In less than 5 minutes, we were at it and having a ball of a time.... OH, the fun we had!!! Never mind it was less than half an hour for bedtime, we shared some hearty laughs while the mini's little hands got some little workout by all that throwing and in the process some hand-eye coordination exercise happened too. All, while having loads of fun!

Read on to know how we played this game...

Muffin Tray and Balls - Colour Pattern Matching Actvity

The Mini has been quite fascinated by colours, just like any other two year old. Colour matching activities interest him a lot and I have been putting together a lot of simple little games using our bunch of colourful plastic balls, play-dough, Popsicle sticks, his toy cars or whatever else that I can find around the house. 

Being a baker Mumma, I have a fair bunch of baking material stocked with me at home. So this particular activity needs a 6 cavity muffin pan. However, if you do not have a muffin tray but do find an equivalent item, maybe six paper cups, six steel cups or whatever you feel will suit the requirement, feel free to use it. Early learning is all about simple fun stuff for me, using simple items and nothing expensive or specially bought material. 

My son was 25 months when I introduced this activity to him. He couldn't get the hang of it at the first go. He just had fun with grasping the balls and placing them randomly in the muffin tray :) Its fine. If an activity engages a toddler for a good amount of time, it is time well spent. Eventually after a couple of attempts, he got it and enjoyed doing it over and over. Try it with your little one!

Muffin Tray Ball Transfer Activity

Toddlers love transferring things, anything from one place to another. Random transfers really. They don't have any order in mind but have the constant urge to keep their little feet and hands busy doing something! 

So, why not channelise this urge into a creative, orderly activity to help them understand order and purposeful transferring a little better? This simple activity will help little ones develop their concentration and hand eye co-ordination  all this while having fun transferring, an activity they any love! :)

Matching Boxes with Lids

My little boy loves hanging out in the kitchen, playing with utensils and opening boxes. He enjoys his time in the kitchen so much that I decided to make a fun activity around the plastic storage boxes that I had in hand. 

I gathered 4-5 boxes of different sizes, and colours and laid them in from of him in such a way that the boxes are in line and their respective lids are in a parallel line in front of them. He just merely has to match the lids with their boxes. Its a simple activity, but kept him entertained and occupied for a few minutes allowing his tiny brain to process the requirements of this game. 

Of course he did not get it all right the first few times, but he tried it over again a few times and slowly seemed to get a hang of it and got better at it in just a few attempts.

Eventually, he was able to place the correct lids over the correct boxes and seemed mighty pleased with himself about his achievement! :)