One of the challenges of being a stay at home mom is finding activities
for your little one to keep them entertained throughout the day. These
are a few of our current favorite activities:
Stickers: Toddlers love stickers! Plus, manipulating stickers with their tiny fingers is great for fine motor development. Emma can't peel stickers off the sticker sheet by herself, so I peel off a dozen or so and lightly stick them to a piece of plain paper. Then she entertains herself by unsticking and re-sticking them all over the paper. Playing with stickers can also be a great counting and color sorting activity!
Ball pit: Emma was first grandchild and niece for both sides of our family, and subsequently, she is quite spoiled! In fact, for her first birthday, she got a personal inflatable ball pit! It's the kind of thing that I would probably never buy for her myself, but she really does love it, and it can be a great way for her to expel some energy. For those of you who don't have an overzealous Auntie to buy an inflatable ball pit, you can also use your Pack-and-Play or plastic kiddie pool. The balls themselves are actually pretty cheap. You can order them from Amazon, and we've actually picked some up at our local Goodwill and Once Upon a Child since Emma's birthday.
And, of course...
Read: Reading is one of the best activities you can do with your child at any age!
Stickers: Toddlers love stickers! Plus, manipulating stickers with their tiny fingers is great for fine motor development. Emma can't peel stickers off the sticker sheet by herself, so I peel off a dozen or so and lightly stick them to a piece of plain paper. Then she entertains herself by unsticking and re-sticking them all over the paper. Playing with stickers can also be a great counting and color sorting activity!
Pom Pom Drop: I first saw this idea from how we montessori
on Pinterest, and logged it away in the back of my brain. Then the
other day, Emma and I were over at my mom's house and my mom and I were
busy with a project in the kitchen. Emma was getting bored, but we needed a few more minutes to finish, so I whipped up this quick activity for her. All you need is an empty toilet paper roll or paper towel tube, some tape, a bucket, and a handful of pom poms (or small blocks, or crumpled paper, or really anything that will fall through the tube). Then let your baby drop the pom poms through the tube and into the bucket. Repeat! I'll be honest: After a few minutes, Emma decided it was more fun to just carry the bucket around and scatter the pom poms on the floor like she was planting seeds. But it did capture her attention for those precious few minutes and we will certainly be trying it again.
Ball pit: Emma was first grandchild and niece for both sides of our family, and subsequently, she is quite spoiled! In fact, for her first birthday, she got a personal inflatable ball pit! It's the kind of thing that I would probably never buy for her myself, but she really does love it, and it can be a great way for her to expel some energy. For those of you who don't have an overzealous Auntie to buy an inflatable ball pit, you can also use your Pack-and-Play or plastic kiddie pool. The balls themselves are actually pretty cheap. You can order them from Amazon, and we've actually picked some up at our local Goodwill and Once Upon a Child since Emma's birthday.
And, of course...
A few of Emma's current favorites are:
- Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type by Doreen Cronin
- Princess Hyacinth (The Surprising Tale of a Girl Who Floated) by Florence Parry Heide
- When My Baby Dreams by Adele Enersen
My 3 good things for today are:
- I've finally gotten over a nasty cold! Maybe it will be my only one this cold and flu season. Maybe? Maybe?
- Grandma gave Emma a whole book of new stickers that someone else was just going to throw away!
- Emma giggled and giggled and mooed when we read Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type. Too cute!
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