Toddler’s play

Few activities for children of ages 1 – 1.6 years

Play is child’s work. Your little one has a lot of energy and to dissipate that in the right way needs a lot of energy and ideas from our side. Screen time for young kids especially for children below 1.5 years is highly not recommended. And during this period of the pandemic, its very difficult to keep the kids indoor with this high energy. Sure they do get bored and irritated with very limited exposure they get within the house. So here are some ideas to make your little one’s play time an interesting one.

Ps: Tried and tested with V! I have added only the ones that V enjoys doing.

1. Sensory play:

This is the first and basic level of play development in a child’s life. Children learn through exploration and the first level of exploration is seeing, touching, putting things in the mouth, throwing or banging to see and hear the different sounds made, and smelling. It might not always be safe too when children start to mouth, so every activity you do, make sure, there is an adult assistance. A random search on the internet would give you plenty of ideas. Here are some of it that I do with V.

a. Colored rice: you can easily make it adding food color to uncooked rice and keep it for drying. You could mix up different colors and mix it all up for more fun. Your little one would love to feel the texture of rice and spill it all around, put it over their head, throw it around, walk on it and even try to eat it. Its better to be around while you give it, because you don’t want them to eat it. Though its not toxic and can have a safe play. Slowly after exploration, we can help them to fill in a tumbler or cup and transfer and play. They will enjoy.

b. Play clay: I don’t use the ones that we get from the market, I make this as well. Just to make sure its not harmful for the little one. My recipe for play doh is by mixing 2 parts all purpose flour to 1 part salt with water and a tsp of vegetable oil and make it into a doh. Also add food color according to your choice.

You can simply aim at rolling the clay or pinching it all out, or cutting with a play knife, or making simple shapes to start with. Keep it as a moustache or beard or a bhindi etc. all this helps in fine motor development. Also again its safe even if you child tries to gobbles a little, though not advisable.

c. Flowers, leaves, stones, sticks: the nature friendly things. If you have a small balcony garden or outdoor garden, leave them out. Let them explore the different textures outside, touch, feel, smell and see the different textures of leaves (be it dry or ripe) flowers of different colors, walk on the grass with no shoes on, or walk on the sand and mud. Touch the mud, pluck some leaves etc. the festival of onam was of great help to us, as when we put the flower carpet for all the 10 days,  V was getting a good time with plucking flowers and helping me put the pookalam (flower carpet).. Its great sensory exploration.

d. Water: simply giving water to play with is messy, I totally agree, but its totally fun. Adding some color to water will add more fun, to avoid food color, you can use natural colors of beetroot, turmeric etc. simply transferring from one glass to another, splashing etc is a great way to engage them. Especially when you have to do some house chores, you can give them some water and get them to stay engaged while you finish your work. That’s my ever-winning trick 😛

e. Bubble play: blowing bubbles is a visual treat. Blowing, popping and trying to catch the bubbles can bring in loads of fun for both you and your child 🙂

2. Rhymes:

Sing along rhymes with actions, especially the ones with a lot of movement is great fun. All-time favorite rhymes like

“5 little monkeys”, “row row row your boat”, “round and round the garden”, “ring a ring a roses”, “rolly polly”, “ put your right hand in”, “if you happy and you know it” with a lot of actions involved.

3. Games

The best games are the ones which has people involved more than toys. Some of those games that we regularly play includes:

• Run and catch
• Peek a boo
• Ball throw
• Climbing up and down the stairs
• Elephant ride

4. Book time

Reading with her is something we both enjoy a lot. Books that she likes include some touch and feel ones and the ones which has large pictures. Not necessarily, we have to read the entire script, you could just name what you see in each page or act out something that you see in a page. Example making animal sounds or acting out how an elephant would sneeze, vs a baby cry etc.

Making a scrap book:

Making a scrap book with the child’s own pictures and pictures of family members will make it interesting for them to look through the pages.You can also draw simple pictures of things your child likes or take printouts or pictures and stick that in the book. Writing the word along with the picture also helps.

Hope you all will be able to make use of at least some idea to engage your little one. have a great time!! Enjoy parenthood 🙂