In this article, we bring to you an assortment of Montessori activities that you can try out with your toddlers. Is your little one just about to start preschool? Or is he/she just learning to walk or speak?
Well, look no further. Here are some age-appropriate and upper-efficient activities that they will love doing. Let’s start!🏁
Movement & Music
Walking the line
It’s like walking on a balancing beam but on a line of masking tape on the floor. If possible, you can also customize the path into a log or curb. If they can do it regularly, it works great for their focus and coordination.
Climbing
Encourage your toddlers to practice climbing a step stool or a piece of scaled furniture. Make sure it is done under adult supervision so that they don’t hurt themselves.
You can also go for indoor and outdoor climbers. This activity is great for kids to burn off energy.
Pro Tip: If you want to do a sensory activity. You can make a DIY crash mat with cushions and blankets.
Yoga cards🧘
It’s important to get kids interested in doing yoga at home from a younger age. They can practice simple poses like downward dog and butterfly.
This improves their strength and flexibility and will keep them busy. Use yoga cards to guide them with the poses.
Taking a walk🚶♀️
This was my go-to activity for my kids when they were toddlers. You can just take a long walk in the garden with them, where you can talk about random stuff and enjoy the soothing scenery. This is a great physical exercise and also improves parent-child interaction.
Pro Tip: You can encourage them to do natural activities like picking up flowers or collecting colorful stones.
Playing an instrument🎸
If your toddler is keen on music, you can teach them how to play their favorite musical instrument.
Drums, xylophones, bells, and maracas make for amazing and safe instruments for the little ones. They can also improve something out of household items, like a metal pot or spoon.
Dancing💃
Dancing is a great activity to teach kids about body-mind coordination, space navigation, and creative expression.
Just put on some funky music and make your kids dance to their own beat and just be themselves. Gather everyone in the house for a fun family dancing session.
Practical Life
Whisking soap water
Kids love playing with bubbles. So, why not do a practical activity that includes this lament of fun? Add water and dish soap in a bowl and ask the little ones to whisk it and create bubbles. Trust me, they will not want to stop playing this game!
Pro Tip: Place a towel under the bowl or ask the kids to do this activity outdoors so that you don’t have to clean up a huge mess later.
Scooping and shifting
Take two bowls, one filled with dried grains and one empty. Teach your kid to use a spoon to scoop grains and transfer them to the empty bowl. I consider this to be a basic, practical life skill that all kids should learn.
Pouring
This is a basic life skill that helps kids improve their fine motor skills and learn to do certain things by themselves.
Put dried beans in a small pitcher and ask the little ones to pour the contents carefully into a second container without spilling.
Pro Tip: See if the kids can pour themselves a glass of milk.
Preparing a snack🍟
Get your little ones interested in kitchen chores by asking them to prepare a snack. Toddlers can easily spread jam, hummus, and similar stuff on toast/crackers. Get them a child-safe knife and ask them to cut fruits and veggies.
Cleaning the table
Kids need to learn to contribute to household chores and do little things to help their parents. For starters, you can give them a spray bottle and clean cloth and ask them to scrub the dining table clean before dinner is served.
Pro Tip: Start doing the work yourself at first, and see if your little ones are keen to join in or want to do it themselves.
Sweeping/ Mopping
I have always tried to teach my kids to practice these everyday skills since they were very young. Ask your little ones to mop up where there has been a spill. This not only teaches them to be independent but also the importance of hygiene.
Sensory activity
Playdough
This is probably the most phenomenal sensory activity for kids ever! It lets children play freely as they squish or roll the dough in whatever way they like.
I would suggest giving them other materials like playdough instruments, colorful stones, and popsicle sticks.
Pro Tip: You can buy good quality playdough or make your own DIY playdough at home.
Sound cylinders
This activity is customized to teach kids to differentiate between sounds and match identical sounds.
Traditional sound cylinders can be bought, but you can also make a DIY version of it at home. It’s cheaper and more efficient. Use opaque containers to make the activity more challenging.
Discovery basket.🧺
Simply put together household objects like a husk, shell, wooden spoon, ribbon, a piece of fabric, etc., in a basket.
Then, ask your kids to touch and explore everything in the basket. This is a great activity to improve their sensory capabilities.
Pro Tip: You can find quirky and innovative basket ideas online.
Smelling bottles🍶
This activity is customized to improve toddlers’ sense of smell. Make DIY-smelling bottles at home.
Fill separate bottles with scented materials like vanilla, lemon, or peppermint. Ask the kids to smell each bottle very intently and use the trial and error method to find the perfect match.
Color sorting🟡🟢
Many toddlers love color-sorting activities. Give your little ones a segmented tray or cookie tin. Put together pom poms, buttons, feathers, and other objects of different colors but similar shapes and sizes and ask them to sort everything in different segments.
Pro Tip: Start with basic colors like red and blue or green and yellow so that the kids aren’t confused.
A hot and cold sensory bottle
This activity is customized to help teach your kids to explore temperature variations. Fill two bottles with hot water(make sure it’s safe to touch) and ice-cold water. Next, encourage the kids to touch or shake the bottle to experience the warmth and coolness.
Art
Coloring🟫
This is the most basic and effective activity for toddlers. Give them some crayons and a white sheet or coloring book, and let them explore their creativity.
See if the toddlers have an interest or flair for art activities. They can also use oil pastels or paint sticks.
Pro Tip: To improve their focus, avoid giving them too many art supplies.
Watercolor painting
I prefer watercolor painting more for toddlers because it’s more fun and less messy. Just go for a vibrant, non-toxic set of watercolors. All you need is a sheet of paper, water in a bowl, and a sponge to clean up, and your toddlers are good to go for some artistic fun!
Scissor practice✂️
It’s important to let your children learn using basic household instruments like scissors. So, you can start by asking them to cut playdough or cardboard strips. Make sure this activity is done under adult supervision, and they learn to be precise and safe.
Pro Tip: Whatever you use, cardboard or paint strips, make sure you cut them into thin pieces for the kids’ convenience.
Collaging
Provide your kids with a basic collage tray with simple ingredients like glue, paintbrushes, paper scraps, feathers, and similar collage materials.
Guide them through the process of ‘painting’ with the glue and sticking the materials onto a sheet of paper.
Sculpting clay
Let me tell you something. Toddlers benefit greatly from clay activities. They are amazing for sensory learning, fine motor skills, and creative depression.
Ask them to mold the clay with bare hands. Avoid using tools. They can also decorate dried herbs, flowers, and colorful stones in the clay.
Pro Tip: Use a cutting board to avoid making a mess.
Dot stickers
Provide your kids with a sheet of paper and some dot stickers. Ask them to peel and paste them on top of the paper in whichever way they feel like.
This art activity is also amazing in improving their hand-eye coordination and spatial reasoning.
Language & Literacy
Reading stories📚
As a bookworm, I have always encouraged my kids to practice reading regularly. Schedule a fixed ‘story time’ for your toddlers, maybe 10 minutes before going to bed. Read to them, and teach them to read as well, if they can.
Pro Tip: Explore books that are animated, have illustrations, and rhyming words.
Singing songs.🎵
Want to sing your heart out aloud with your little ones? Well, do it right away because it’s one of the best activities to keep them engaged. Find out easy toddler songs they can sing along to. This is a great way to help them learn new words.
Pre-writing practice✏️
I know. Two-year-olds don’t need to start writing. But if your kid is interested, you can ask them to draw or write something, maybe on birthday cards for Dad, or just scrambling on a piece of paree. This is a great activity to develop their pre-writing skills.
Pro Tip: Allow the kids to experiment with writing materials (paper and crayons, sand tray for tracing, or slate and chalk) and techniques.
I Spy
I have often tried out this basic letter sound activity with my kids when they were toddlers. Use familiar objects like an apple, a bowl, or stones.
Say, ‘I spy something starting with ‘letter sound,’ and see if they can find the right object.
Exploring language objects
This activity is a great way to teach your kids about letter sounds, but it needs some extra prep. Put together miniature objects starting with various letter sounds 9, for example, button, boat, and block for B). Name them with your kids, and then ask them to find each object.
Pro Tip: Create letter sound sets using household/thrifted things.
What’s missing?❔
This is a fun and interesting memory activity for toddlers. Put together 4-5 objects onto a tray and make sure your kid knows all the names. Next, hide one of the objects and ask them to tell from memory what’s missing.
Fine Motor
Opening and closing
This activity is amazing for fine motor skill development. Create a basket containing a coin pouch, jar, ring box, etc. -things that can be opened and closed. Ask your kids to explore these objects by themselves. See how flexible they can do it.
Pro Tip: To make things interesting, hide treasures like toffees or cookies inside the boxes.
Solving puzzles
Who doesn’t like solving puzzles? Also, they are amazing at improving hand-eye coordination, fine motor skills, and problem-solving capabilities. You can also make your own DIY puzzle at home using online guidance.
Pro Tip: For toddlers, start with simple knobbed pieces with 4-10 pieces.
Pegboard toy
Kids can greatly improve their fine motor skills if they practice this pegboard activity regularly.
Ask them to put pegs into the holes using a pincer grasp so that muscles in their fingers and wrists become stronger and more efficient.
Locks and keys🔑
Toddlers are intrigued by keys because they are shiny, jingling objects. You can do this activity with the little ones, where you give them a set of different locks and keys and let them explore the variations in lock-and-key mechanisms.
Pro Tip: To ensure kids’ safety, keep the key tied to a piece of yarn.
Posting Activities
Generally, posting refers to putting an object in through a container’s opening. This is a very basic and interesting play for toddlers and has many developmental advantages. Let us look at some activities you can try out at home:
Playing card posting
Take an empty cereal container and cut a slit in the lid. Now, ask your kids to draw playing cards through the slit. See if they can do the activity with precision without dropping a card.
Coin box
It’s always fun for kids to put coins or poker chips into a piggy bank. You can also use an empty can with a slit in its lid.
Ping-pong ball-dropping
Take a cardboard box and flip it. Now, cut open a hole somewhat larger than a ping-pong ball. Next, give your kids some ping pong balls and see if they can drop them through the hole precisely.
Straw posting
Take an empty cereal container and cut several slits in the lid. Next, give some straws to the kids, cut into half, and ask them to drop them through the holes.
Using Tools
Encourage your kids to do activities that require real household tools like nuts and bolts, hammers, screw boards, etc.
They can hammer pegs into clay or tighten a loose screw. This is a great way to make kids efficient and improve their fine motor skills.
Pro Tip: Make sure all equipment is child-friendly, and all activities are performed under adult supervision.
Maths
Counting
Include counting exercises in your kids’ movement games. For example, instruct them to clap 12 times or jump 15 times.
Or, build a tower and ask them to count the number of blocks in it. This is a great way to teach them calculation through fun playtime.
Baking 👩🍳
Surprised to see baking on this list? Well, don’t be. It is the best hands-on activity for kids to develop maths skills because it involves measuring and counting.
For example, instruct them,” Take 2 cups of flour in a bowl.’ or, ‘Separate the cake in 4 parts”, etc.
Pro Tip: You can search for toddler-friendly baking recipes online.
One-to-one correspondence
Have you heard of this term before? Well, it’s based on the fact that every number has only one matching quantity.
This skill is useful for counting activities. We don’t often prioritize it, but it turns out that it is one of the most important foundational maths skills for toddlers.
Matching
There are so many fun matching activities for toddlers that you can try out at home. Kids can pair up socks or do an object-to-object matching practice to develop their maths skills.
This improves their ability to identify objects and differentiate between colors, shapes, and patterns.
Pro Tip: You can also try doing a DIY puzzle where they match objects to their respective outlines.
Sorting
Once your little ones get used to matching activities, move on to sorting. For example, give them ten red and ten blue balls or ten big and ten small balls mixed in a tray. In two bowls, ask them to separate all the balls accordingly.
Block play ⬛️
Blocks are amazing learning objects for toddlers. Different block activities will help them develop their hand-eye coordination, fine motor skills, problem-solving capabilities, spatial reasoning, etc.
Kids also get a good understanding of arithmetic and geometry through these activities. Hands-on exploration and creative thinking will help them learn maths through their fun playtime.
Pro Tip: Go for classic wood blocks or magnet blocks. Try to follow your child’s lead.
Science
Plant care 🌱
Get your kids interested in gardening so that they can stay in touch with nature. You can teach them to plant a seed, water plants in the garden, pull out weeds, etc. They will eventually want to take up gardening as a hobby.
Observing living objects
Every mere observation of living objects can be very useful for toddlers. Ask your kids to chase butterflies, notice how birds fly in the sky, or fish swim in the pond. Ask them to observe stuff and then describe to you what they see.
Pro Tip: For better learning, you can ask them to draw pictures to express what they have observed.
Sinking/Floating
Just put together different household objects that sink and float. Next, ask your kids to drop every object in a bucket of water and see if it floats or sinks.
I love this activity because it is efficient and, most importantly, low-prep.
Pumpkin play 🎃
Yes, you read it right! This is one of my favorite science activities for toddlers. Give your kid a pumpkin and see if they can study its different parts. They can also wasn’t it with dish soap, scoop and mask the guts, etc.
Fizzy science
Mix baking soda and vinegar or create a lemon ‘volcano’ and we all know what happens! Kids are going to love the chemical ‘explosion.’
Any activity that creates fizz is also a great science experiment that kids are easily intrigued by.
Pro Tip: You can easily perform this activity using bath bombs to make shower time more fun.
Scavenger hunt
Enjoy a day with your toddler in the garden and collect natural treasures like trigs, colorful stones, pinecones, or orchids.
Notice what attracts the little ones the most. Bring home everything you collected in the nature hunt and let your kids explore them later.
Pro Tip: You can use an egg carton to collect stuff.
Conclusion
I hope your little ones love doing these activities. They involve a wide range, from movement and art to treasure hunts. They are extremely helpful in improving toddlers’ sensory perception and basic movements.
Let me know if this article was helpful! Can’t wait to hear stories about how much fun you guys had!
I’m a former teacher (and mother of Two Childs) with a background in child development. Here to help you with play-based learning activities for kids. ( Check my Next startup Cledemy.Com)