Because Jonas tends to get into toddler kinds of trouble when he’s bored, I have recently decided that it would behoove me and him to try to come up with a list of different and engaging things that he can do/we can do together…
So, I searched through all of the “activities” posts in the “toddlers” group of the online mommy discussion board that I’m a member of and found some great ideas to add to my list. My very favorite post BY FAR was a link to the blog of a former preschool teacher/current mom of a three year old:
http://engagingtoddleractivities.wordpress.com/
I am now a HUGE fan and have been completely inspired. I have even rediscovered the lesson planning part of my brain. I am shamelessly copying the format she loosely follows with her son, which is to do a little bit of the following every day of the week for a week and then take a week off: a lesson (letter, number, shape, color, animal, etc.), table time and/or craft time (coloring, playing with play-doh, matching lids, fingerpainting, finding colorful pom-poms in rice, baking, etc.), a game and/or activity (working puzzles, reading books, playing with toys that reinforce the lesson, etc.), and outdoor time (a nature walk, a visit to the zoo, a trip to the dog park, playing in the sandbox, etc.). We have been having so much fun!!!
Here are three pieces that we worked on this week: construction paper circles (Jonas liked to use the glue stick most of all, so he glued and I placed the circles), sticker pages (it cracked me up how he didn’t like any of the stickers to overlap), and a chocolate oat acorn (he loved helping squeeze the glue bottle, was all about eating the chocolate chips instead of placing them on the top of the acorn so I did that part, and had a blast dropping handfuls of oatmeal onto the bottom of the acorn and even onto the kitchen floor…oh well that’s what brooms are for, right?).
