2 Years – 3 Years
2 – 3 Years Play Ideas
Puffy Paint: There is something magical about Puffy Paint and it is a must try for any child or toddler to paint and play with. It is super easy to make with all the ingredients you need right in your pantry and after your child has finished painting, place it in the microwave for the magic to happen…….It is SO much FUN!! Read more……
Pompom Hockey: Keep the kids entertained with Pompom Hockey. It is a super simple activity you can set up at home for the kids, that is fun, challenging and exciting. It also gets little bodies moving! Read more…..
Sensory Play with Ice World: Ice World is a sensory activity for toddlers and pre-school children involving playing with ice, water and sea theme props. The amazing thing about sensory play is that it opens the door to so many wonderful learning opportunities such as imaginative play, language exploration, fine motor development for pre-writing skills, coordination, social interactions and so much more. Read more…….
Sorting Colours with Pompoms and Cardboard Rolls: Making learning your colours fun with this interactive game using pompoms and cardboard rolls! It involves sorting and placing coloured pompoms into the matching coloured cardboard roll and catching them in a bowl. It was a great way to reinforce the learning of colours, checking for understanding and having some fun with colours. Read more……
Jelly Play Dough Critters: Recently I shared a recipe for Jelly Play Dough; this is what we did with it! We created some funny Jelly Play Dough Critters, frogs, owls, funny faces, monsters and a little kitten. The ideas and the imagination are endless. Read more…..
Back Yard Water Park: We set a range of different theme stations for the kids to play and explore, some were more sensory play based and others were imaginative play based. Altogether we had seven water play stations in our Back Yard Water Park. Read more…..
Play Dough and Buttons: Setting up an invitation to play with play dough, and buttons to inspire the imagination and creativity. Read more…..
How to make Gloop? If you haven’t made Gloop yet, then this is a must for any toddler or child to try. It is super fun and super messy, I am not sure who had the most fun, me or the kids!! Gloop is an interesting mixture with a unique texture to explore and play with. Playing with Gloop is a fabulous sensory and science activity to learn about the concepts of what a solid and liquid is. Read more…..
Homemade Alphabet Sponge Letters: So much fun for the bath…….and learning your alphabet too! A great tactile and hands-on activity for kids to play with while taking a bath. When wet, the sponges stick or suction slightly to the sides of the bath and tiles, making it a great canvas for creating endless ideas. Read more…..
Fine Motor with Tokens: A fun and colourful activity to promote fine motor development by placing each small token is carefully over the circles to colour the sea horse picture in. Read more…..
Create a Spring Play Dough Garden: Here is a great spring theme activity for the kids, creating a Spring Play Dough Garden. The play dough has been scented with a herbal shampoo to smell like flowers and is textured with small coloured flower petals. It is a great activity for kids to explore their creativity and imagination as they create their very own spring garden. Read more…..
Kid Car Wash Tunnel: I truly believe that the simplest things bring the most fun! We have been making a homemade Car Wash Tunnel for the kids using simple items you will find around the house. This is such a fantastic activity to do with toddlers, older babies and pre-schoolers to help build up gross motor skills and have lots of fun inside when it is raining outside. Read more…..
Rainbow Salt Tray: Why would you need crayons, textas, pencils and paper to draw when you can have more fun with a Rainbow Salt Tray! Read more…..
Pasta Play Dough: Let your child’s imagination run wild as they create and explore play dough and pasta. Read more…..
Imaginative Play – Planting a Garden : Coming Soon!!
DIY Skittles & Games: Our Homemade Skittles would have to be one of the most played with toys in our house. My girls are continuously finding new and fun things to do with them. Read more….
Nature’s Paint Brushes: With the weather warming up, I have been planning more activities to do with the kids outside and I thought these paint brushes would be perfect for textured painting on a large paper canvas fixed to the fence. Read more….
Alphabet Play Dough: We had so much fun playing with our Alphabet Play Dough! It is a fun activity to help kids learn their alphabet letters and build up their fine motor skills at the same time. This activity involves using play dough to create letters in the alphabet, using the FREE Printable Alphabet Play Dough Mats as a guide. Read more…..
Colourful Sensory Play with Jelly: Ooey, gooey, slushy and messy! A fun sensory experience playing with Rainbow Jelly. Read more…..
Name Collage: Making a name collage using pom poms is an activity that will help your child become interested in their name and the letters that make up their name. Read more….
Paint Pops: Making painting fun using frozen paint on a pop stick. Create endless paintings as the paint melts! Read more……
Strawberry Scented Rice: Exploring and playing with strawberry scented rice with all kinds of scoops, shovels and sifts. Read more…..
Washing a Toy Baby: Watching Mum and Dad washing a baby sibling is an example of an experience that children copy and re-enact. Watching and learning from this experience then practising, imitating and experimenting this through imaginary play. Read more…..
Homemade Street Traffic Bath Sponges: This will keep the kids busy while having a bath as well as stimulating their imaginations and developing their storytelling skills. It is a great hands-on sensory play activity that promotes creativity, storytelling and the imagination. The bath tub is a great canvas for creating stories! A free printable too! Read more…..
Straw Flowers: A cute little gift idea! Something so simple, fun and easy to make and you will find all the items you need around the home. Read more…..
Sensory Play Rice and Bottle Tops: Developing fine motor skills through sensory play with rainbow rice and bottle tops that will also inspire the imagination and creativity. Read more…..
Pipe Cleaner Maze: Exploring and playing with pipe cleaners and beads with the Styrofoam while exercising the fine motor muscles. Read more…..
Play Dough Cupcakes: There is so much fun to be had creating pretend cupcakes as kids have the freedom to explore the imaginary world. This is a great activity to introduce and sing the Pat-a-Cake nursery rhyme. Read more……
We’re Going On a Teddy Bear Hunt: We have a gorgeous book which comes with a CD that tells the story of the adventure of going on a bear hunt. My kids have played this CD over many times as I watch them pretend to walk through long, wavy grass and run away from a bear. So I thought I would bring this story to life some more by creating the different scenes in the book. Read more…..
Pillow Case Hoppers: this wonderful activity reminded me of how the simple things can bring so much fun, while being active. This game is an oldie but a goodie replacing the hessian sacks with a pillow case……simple hours of fun! Read more…..
Soapy Slime FUN: This activity was FUN, REALLY FUN!! Kids love to get messy, it comes with being a kid as they explore their natural curiosity about the world around them. Read more…..
Paint Me: Paint Me is a cute and quirky activity that kids will enjoy making! I plan to use ours as keep sake to giggle at in years to come. It is a perfect snap shot of the size of your kids hands and feet to compare with when they get older. Read more…..
Play Dough and Cardboard Tubes: “Rolling play dough balls down a cardboard tube ramp!” Lots of fun with play dough. Read more…..
Colourful Pattern Collage: These Colourful Pattern Easter Eggs are a bright and colourful activity for the kids to do this Easter. They are super simple to make, don’t require a lot of materials and are lots of fun! Read more…..
Alphabet Hide & Seek: My kids get very excited when we play this game. The challenge and anticipation of searching for something brings so much fun to learning your alphabet letters! The Hide and Seek Letter Hunt involves hiding the letter pairs around the house and your child goes around finding them. Free printable. Read more…..
What is Hiding in Our Jelly? Since our first play experience with jelly, my kids have been asking if we could do it again. This time I hid some items in the jelly for them to squeeze and squish through to find. Read more…..
Great Places to Play at Home: There are so many wonderful places in the home where children can play imaginatively, creatively and get active indoors. Kids will create imaginary worlds to explore and play using the most inexpensive and simple things you can find right at home. Here are a few ideas for you to try! Read more…..
Pompoms and Mini Tongs: In the early years, we often hear discussions about the importance of fine motor and gross motor development in kids. Here is a great activity that is fun and exercises those little muscles to develop strength! Read more…..
Bottle Top Leaf Boats: What I love about winter is that there are lots of puddles to play in. Recently after days of rain and being stuck inside, we put our rain coats and gum boots on for a splash about in the puddles. Read more….
Number Cookies: An irresistibly yummy numeracy activity for kids! So much learning happens when we cook with our kids. The social interactions, processing information, following directions, problem solving and coordination. Read more…..
Bottle Tops & Bubbles: A simple unstructured and fun sensory play idea using water, bubbles and bottle tops. It was wonderful to see the creativity, imagination and fun happen just by adding bottle tops and bubble bath to the tub.
The Nursery Rhymes Box : The Nursery Rhyme Box is an activity developed to encourage and promote oral language development in young children. It is essentially a box filled with a number of props that will trigger a nursery rhyme song, such as a stuffed toy cow may trigger the nursery rhyme ‘Hey Diddle Diddle’ or ‘Old Mac Donald had a Farm’ because these nursery rhymes have a cow in their lyrics. Read more…..
Blackberry Finger Painting: An activity inspired by reading the children’s book Mr McGee and the Blackberry Jam by Pamela Allen. It had been a while since we have pulled out the paints so I thought we would get them out to do a little finger painting and incorporate it with our theme of blackberries. We made some blackberries using purple and black paint and our fingers. It is always so much fun painting with our fingers! Read more…..
Sorting Coloured Match Sticks: In the early years, we often hear discussions about the importance of fine motor and gross motor development in kids. Here is a great activity that is fun and exercises those little muscles to develop strength! Read more…..
Colourful Cellophane Sticky Art: Cellophane Sticky Art is a great activity to introduce kids to colours!! I believe it is never too early to start learning about concepts such as colour and that through setting up opportunities to play and learn will begin the journey of developing an understanding. Read more…..
Play Dough – Bottle Tops and Straws:It is always fun to watch and see what kids will come up with when you give them simple props to promote play in an open-ended and unstructured way.
Here I have set up our activity table with play dough, bottle tops and straws to inspire the imagination and creativity. Read more….
Paper Plate Rainbow: Using simple craft materials to create a Paper Plate Rainbow! Kids will enjoy swishing the rainbow through the air while listening to their favourite rainbow songs. Read more…..
Blue Theme Sensory Tub: Having some fun in a sensory tub filled with blue rice and blue pompoms! Miss 22months loves sensory tubs and loves to run her fingers through the rice and pompoms and sprinkling them like it is rain. Read more…..
Water Balloons: A fun sensory play experience for kids in the bath tub by adding balloons filled with water. Read more…..
Autumn Play Dough Leaf Prints:We have been celebrating the new season and the changes in the colours of leaves with making leaf prints and patterns using real leaves in a Nutmeg Scented Autumn Play Dough.
The play dough is lightly scented with spicy nutmeg and cinnamon, with brown colouring and red and gold glitter bringing together all the wonderful elements of autumn. Read more…..
Learning about the Colour Green – List of Green Activities: As part of our Learning Colours Series here on learning4kids, today I am sharing with you some of the activities we have been doing as we explore and play with the colour green. Our ‘green activities’ involve a Green Tea Party in the bath, reading the book Where is the Green Sheep?, painting with green paint and manipulating green play dough. Read more…..
Learning about the Colour Yellow – List of Yellow Activities: As part of our Learning Colours Series here on learning4kids, we have been exploring and playing with the colour yellow with water balloons, marble paintings, fine motor games with pompoms and a homemade music shaker! Read more…..
Learning about the Colour Red – List of Red Activities: Exploring and playing with the colour red with crafts, play dough, bath fun, discovery boxes and more. Read more…..
Learning about the Colour Blue – List of Blue Activities: As part of our Learning Colours Series here on learning4kids, this week we have been exploring and playing with the colour blue with bubbles, bottle tops, paint, rice and balloons! Read more…..
Number Play Dough: We had so much fun making numbers with our Orange Scented Play Dough. It is a fun activity to introduce or reinforce learning about numbers for kids and develop an understanding of ‘how many’ to make a number. Free printable number play dough mats. Read more…..
Bubble Wrap Painting: Kids never get bored with bubble wrap, there is so much fun to be had and so much to explore with it. One of these things to explore is the interesting patterns and shapes it creates with paint. Here we have incorporated bubble wrap painting with a Valentine’s Day theme using cut out heart shapes with bubble wrap. Read more…….
Sensory Play with Sand: Sand is a toy! The less a toy does the more a child will learn! Sand is such a great sensory toy for kids as they explore their sense of touch and play and discover the wonderful texture of sand! Read more…..
Painting with Homemade Number Stamps: These Homemade Number Stamps will make learning your numbers FUN for kids as they can make endless paintings of numbers prints and sing-a-long as they learn and play! The Number Stamps are low cost, require very little materials and are super easy to make! Read more…..
Homemade Guitar: An empty shoe box + elastic bands + a cardboard tube = Homemade Guitar and endless hours of fun! These guitars are such a simple homemade instrument to make and will bring so much fun to kids play times! Read more…..
Let’s Make a Play Dough Cake: Kids love birthdays, blowing out candles and cake! Why not incorporate all these wonderful things with oral language development, strengthening fine motor skills, developing numeracy concepts and most importantly FUN! This activity involves making a play dough cake, adding candles and singing one of my favourite children’s song; 10 Little Candles. Read more…..
Bubble Wrap Painting (shapes): Bubble wrap is so much fun to explore for kids! Feeling the various textures of the puffy bubble pouches and hearing the noise of popping them. Bubble wrap is great for creating interesting patterns and shapes with paint. Here is an activity using bubble wrap painting and learning your shapes too! Read more…..
Rainbow Collage: Adding a little bit of this and a little bit of that to create a rainbow collage! Read more…..
Chocolate Play Dough: This Chocolate Play Dough really looks and smells just like the real thing! YUM!! This play dough is great for an Easter Theme Activity! Read more…..
Fluffy Snow: Making Fluffy Snow using soap flakes is a fun and messy sensory play activity. It is a great way to incorporate a bit of a Christmas theme, well sort of, here in Australia Christmas is celebrated in summer, far from any snow. But it is fun, encourages lots of learning and that is what it is all about. Read more…..
Ice Boats: Water and ice are great for sensory play with kids as it engages children into a world of exploration and wonder. To make our water and ice sensory play experience a little more fun we turned the ice blocks into boats with a few simple materials. Read more…..
Jack in the Box: All you need is a box! It involves singing the well-known nursery rhyme Jack in a Box and acting out the words on cue to the song. We use the box as a creative prop and make the activity fun! Read more……
How to Help Children Develop a Love for Reading? Developing a love for books in the early years will set your child up for reading readiness and help lay the basis for your child’s success inside, outside and beyond school.
Parents can encourage their children to read and develop a love of reading in many ways. Read more…..
Where is the Green Sheep? Extending the learning from the wonderful book for toddlers written by Mem Fox and making our very own Green Sheep Puppet!! Read more…..
Tin Can Music Makers: Make some homemade Tin Can Music Makers with your toddler to shake and play with as they bop along to their favourite songs. Read more…..
Giant Drawing: A giant drawing is an over sized piece of paper that is stuck down using sticky tape. Over a period of days the drawing grows and develops, sometimes a bit of a theme or story grows with it. Read more…..
Little Toilet Roll People: Making these little characters is so much fun as they can be brought to life in imaginative play games. They are so simple to make and are made out recycled materials that you will find around the home. Read more…..
Sock Puppet: Creating a character or a new friend out of a sock brings hours of fun for kids. It’s fun for kids to make their own sock puppet and then the enjoyment of bringing it to life in their imaginative games. Read more…..
Mini Pompom Cupcakes: Mini cupcakes are a simple, colourful and creative craft activity for kids! There are so many fun games and imaginative play times to be had with them. Read more…..