Needing some toddler activities

[Dobela]

My just turned 2 yr old is very busy. I just need to direct her more while ds8 is working and I need to teach him. She doesn't play independently at all yet. If I am working with ds she begs to be held at the table with us and then becomes a huge distraction or she is somewhere creating her own disaster. I need more ideas for activities that she can do in the highchair while I teach ds. My son is also very distractible so I have to take that into consideration. Please, nothing messy or that I would have to clean up after like shaving cream or puddings. I need ideas that can be done pretty much one after another if need be. She doesn't watch videos or TV yet. I don't know if it is because she doesn't like them or if her vision problems make them less enjoyable.

Right now I have:

peg board

age appropriate puzzles

lacing cards

beads

blocks for stacking

block/shape sorter

crayons and paper

tracing templates

 

Thanks!

[eternalknot]

My two year old liked to sort. Like you, my two had a larger age gap (five years) so I completely empathize!

 

Perhaps the best investment I ever made was a big cheap bag o' beans - the kind for bean soup. I got some cheap tongs from the kitchen section of the store and let her go to town. I'd ask her to pick out all of the spotted beans and put them into a pile (or small cup). Then the black beans. Et cetera. It wasn't super messy, but on occasion some would spill (easily swept up at the end, often by her with her own mini-sized brush and pan).

 

A similar project was with colored puff balls (like cotton balls). I'd have her take a huge pile of them and separate them into separate piles of color. When she was closer to three years old, I'd draw lines (with marker) on scrap paper and let her use the glue stick to glue red cotton balls to the red line (etc) and that kept her entertained.

 

With math, what ended being the most helpful as far as keeping her occupied (so my older and I could concentrate on math lessons) was to simply let her play with the manipulatives. Simple cuisinere rods, dice, et cetera. Dice were a good investment - she liked to roll her way around random board games and declare herself a winner at the end LOL. She also used the dice to roll a number and count that many beans/cotton balls/etc. to pile up. It did take her a few weeks to control her die-throwing abilities ;) but once she got the hang of that, it was a good (if somewhat noisy) past time.

 

My older is (was) easily distractable, too. So I aimed for things that would still keep him somewhat focused, but would also not be too far off track from what we were studying - so if he wanted to use the beans or puff balls for math, I was cool with that so long as he still concentrated on his WORK getting finished.

 

Good luck. I remember those days as being particularly challenging, but they DO pass!

[HFClassicalAcademy]

I do all kinds of stuff to keep my little kids out of the way while I work with the older kids.

 

I actually keep a list of it in my planner and change bins out every week or two.

 

The link is here.

 

Hope you get some ideas!!

 

Liz in NC

[Dobela]

Thanks so much for the ideas. I am making a long list in my planner as well. She was very premature so on some levels she is closer to 18 months and that just seems to add to her drama. But even if I am not ready for her to do some things (like glue since she still likes to taste it), I love the cottonball idea and will introduce it later.

 

I hope some more ideas come my way :)

Edited April 2, 2009 by Dobela

[AnneC]

Have you tried the shaving cream in a ziploc bag? This way there is no mess and she can draw pictures and erase them and start over. My 2yo likes to be doing what the big kids are doing so I bought some cheap workbooks for her and she scribbles in them. That will keep her occupied for a while.

[Sebastian (a lady)]

Paula's Archives

 

I think I remember that Dolly of the preschool bags list is/was a poster here.