1. Rice/bean bins. All you need is a bin, some rice or beans, and some scoops or cups.
2. Water bins/tables. These require a nice day and a deck...smile... but are great. Again, fill up a tub with water and provide scoops, bowls, and a few fun trinkets (some that float and some that sink) and let kids play 'til their heart's content. Add a few drops of food coloring for extra fun!
3. Paint with water books. Still a great way to get some exploration going with less than half the mess of the full-fledged version.
4. Puzzles. Use the manufactured variety or try making your own by cutting up pictures your child (or a sibling) has drawn.
5. Special Play Boxes. The idea is that you only take these special boxes of toys out when you are with another child. These are special treats. Change them up every few weeks or so depending upon your younger child’s interests. Here, my youngest daughter is playing with matchbox cars as I work with her brother.
6. Stickers. On paper, on clothes, on favorite bears...
7. Number Wheels. Print a color wheel and ask kids to place the corresponding clothes pin on the wheel. If your child isn't ready for numbers yet, try putting colors onto the wheel and colored dots on the clothes pins for kids to match. If your child is really young, try just giving them clothes pins with a variety of things/materials to attach them to.
8. Legos and blocks. These are great all by themselves, but can also be used in conjunction with props like dolls, cars, shoe-boxes and paper towel rolls.
9. Tweezers and pom poms. Provide some multi-colored craft pom poms and ask kids to sort by size or color. If the child is still very young, take away the tweezers and give them a yogurt container with a small hole cut in the top to stuff pom poms through. When they are done, open the container and start again.
10. Toddler sewing basket. Activities like re-wrapping yarn, lacing, etc.
11. Pipe cleaners in containers. This is a variation of the pom pom suggestion: cut several small holes in a yogurt or coffee container and ask the child to stick pipe cleaners into them. For added challenge, color hole-reinforcers (like you use in three-hole-punched documents) and ask the child to match the pipe cleaner color to the hole reinforcer color.
12. Magazine scavenger hunts. Really young kids can just rip up the pages, but slightly older toddlers can search through pages to find items you ask for, like pictures of smiles, flowers, a Mommy, etc.
13. Alphabet or picture tracing sheets. This is as easy as laminating an alphabet practice sheet and providing dry erase markers. Wipe and start again.
14. Egg cartons filled with plastic colored eggs. Fill these eggs with little trinkets that will make noise in the eggs. This is enough for young kids. For slightly older kids you can ask them what they hear in the eggs, then have them open the eggs on their own to see if they were correct.
15. Play-Doh filled balloons. You never know what a child is going to create with these, but the sensory experience is the major boon.
16. Pool Noodle Stringing. Cut up pool noodles and provide yarn for little kids to string together.
17. Magnetic Magazine Face-Making. Cut out eyes, ears, mouths, noses, etc. from magazines, laminate, and adhere to magnets. Then, provide your toddler with a magnetic surface to rearrange faces.
18. Lacing boards. These can be made with leftover cereal boxes, or can be purchased. You punch several holes along the outline of a shape, and ask your toddler to weave shoestring in and out of the holes. Don't expect perfection unless you are giving instructions- just let them do it on their own.
19. Felt Face-Making. This idea can be adjusted to fit any theme you're working on with just a little forethought. Just create one large, major shape and provide lots of smaller shapes to adorn the large one.
20. Soda bottle filled with glitter, oil, and water. Grab a two-liter and fill it with these ingredients for fun. Roll them, shake them and put them into containers. Remember to glue the cap on before you give this to your child!
21. Button Snake. Tie or sew a button onto a piece of ribbon and provide felt scraps to thread onto the "snake."
22. Clothesline Play. String up a pretend clothesline and provide a few socks, some felt clothes cut-outs, a few scarves, etc. plus a few clothespins and let younger kids have fun hanging up the wash.
23. Bathtub painting. Let a squirmy toddler paint in the bathtub with washable paint. Just strip them down and let them go to town, then use the shower head to rinse it all down the drain.
24. Ziplock bag painting. Fill a bag with paint and tape it up to a glass surface.
25. Giving babydolls a bath. This isn't so gender-specific as you may think. You might be surprised at how many boys enjoy a small tub of water, plastic baby doll, towels and soap.
26. Stamping. Ink pad, paper and a variety of stamps.
27. Color scavenger hunt. Give your child a paper bag with a color scribbled on the front, or a colored bag, and ask them to run around the house until they find items of that color to put in the bag.
28. Bottles and cap matching. Take a bunch of used bottles and let children match the caps to the bottles. Added bonus? This is a self-correcting activity, so when they get to the end and all the caps don't match, they know they've made a mistake and can go back to find it.
29. Rubberband/shoebox guitars. These are fun to play, and fun to make. Just a couple of shoeboxes with rubber bands around them create music (but not too loud) and lots of opportunity for exploration.
30. Give them "work." Give your younger child the same worksheet you give your older child and see what they do with it! The more authentic and identical the worksheet, the better.
31. Pudding/Yogurt finger-painting. Tools like spoons and paintbrushes only add to the fun.
32. Cutting practice. While themed printables are fun, you don't need anything that fancy. Just draw some wiggly lines across a page and ask your older toddler to cut the marks you've made.
33. PlayDoh prints. My kids will play with Play Doh but they're especially intrigued by anything that makes a print in the soft dough (think Legos, sporks, beaded necklaces, cookie cutters and little truck wheels).
34. Sorting. Colored pasta, old keys, nuts and bolts.
35. Balloons. They don't even need helium- just blow them up and provide a pool noodle for hitting, or tie them up with a bunch of ribbon and let your kids try to keep them in the air. Try giving kids a straw and having them blow their balloons around the room.
36. Water transfer. This can be done with pipettes and small bowls of water, or with small pitchers. The key here is small amounts of water. Colored water is extra exciting.
37. Chalk. It's versatile- if you have a chalkboard that's great, but chalk can be used on black construction paper, on driveways and sidewalks if you're outside, on rocks, on felt...
38. Masking tape obstacle course. You can tailor this to meet your child's needs- put down a straight line and ask your child to walk/hop/skip along it. Create squares they must use to jump between, even adhere tape to the walls in a hallway and tell your child to try to go below the lines you've put up.
39. Pattern Blocks. The idea is to use a set of blocks and ask your child to create the same patterns with the blocks that appear on a form.
40. Shadow dancing. Can be done in the dark with flashlights or just by mimicking each others movements.
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