More games for two year olds!Games for two year olds include all kinds of fun activities encouraging two year old learning, with matching, guessing, and building games, as well as musical fun! Parents of two year olds have submitted some wonderful ideas for games to play at home. You'll find games and activities for two year olds that include using your phone, or pipecleaners, post-it notes, pasta, socks... wow, you're all so imaginative, well done! Variety is the spice of life, and there's certainly no shortage of inspiration - enough to keep your little one busy for a whole day, I'm sure!
Clothes pins in a can Thanks for that idea Jodi! Little kids love picking their way through bits and pieces of interesting stuff! And they love to handle real, everyday objects, too, and not just the chunky, plastic or plush toys around them. Here are some more ideas along the same lines: Granny's sewing box
Young children will look with awe at Granny's sewing box- and concentrate hard on holding and examining a reel of cotton, a ball of wool, a length of elastic or a scrap of material that's frayed around the edges! (Just be careful with pins, needles and scissors etc!) My son was fascinated by his Nan's sewing box - it was like magic! Kids also find the contents of your handbag/purse absolutely fascinating! Keys, make-up, money, a packet of tissues, credit cards, small notebooks, a comb... again, you have to keep a very close eye on your young child here, as you don't want them popping any small items in their mouth. Examine some "treasure!"
Why not add a range of interesting items in there? An old silk scarf, a few family photos, a pretty but kid-safe ornament, a silver spoon, a calculator... I'm sure you can find all kinds of bits and bobs to go in there, and your child will have a wonderful time picking everything out, feeling the textures, and putting it all back. Kids love to sort, too. For example, sort blocks by color - make a red pile, a blue pile, a yellow pile. Counting out items is another fun activity Toy ideas Lift-the-flap books also encourage little kids to work with manipulating smaller objects. Phone time game
She responds by picking up another object and uses it like a phone. We then have a typical conversation. This has really helped my daughter learn the "give and take" of a normal conversation. She now says "goodbye" at appropriate times without prompting and is really getting better in social situations. Dance 'til you drop Turn on the music and stand in the middle of the room. When the first song comes on, dance to the music, and encourage your toddler to dance with you. When the music changes, change your dance to match, and encourage your toddler to change with you. Dance until you drop. Party time!
Have him find seats for all of his stuffed animal friends after you have each of them knock on the door for him to pretend open it. Make sure all of his friends thank him for being such a good friend and tell him how excited they are to see him because he is so friendly and nice. Have him hand out plates, food, silverware, party hats, etc, all the while having his "friends" use as many socio-emotional positives as they can. He will happily eat up the attention and begin to learn "please"'s, "thank you"'s, and how to treat friends the right way. This is a good way to get out of a power battle with a 2 year old also. Where's green bear?
Then as the child looks for the animal, give clues, such as 'you're getting closer', 'he's under something', 'he's behind something', 'he's on top of something', 'he's way up high', 'he's by something purple', etc. It really enhances the child's language understanding.
Sneeze and blow
Each child is given a tissue that he uses to practice blowing. Then they discard the tissue appropriately and wash their hands. We do this routinely until all children learn the procedure. At this time I give the children a pocket sized pack of tissue with a ribbon and a well done sticker on it. Thanks Gail! Great idea - I love the fact that the kids get a cute reward for their efforts :) Now, I've written a page all about toddler activities which covers a set of game ideas for bathtime and more, which readers may also find useful for their two year olds. You'll find game suggestions for bathtime fun, getting your kids to clean their teeth properly, and washing their hands! Find the bunny
Place them randomly around the house on a rainy day. Create a story about the bunnies giving clues where they can be found. Each clue has to describe where the bunny is hiding but has to mention the color too. If child finds another bunny ask him the color and to keep searching. This helps him to learn colors and follow a story. Thanks Patricia! Kids could also color in a cute rabbit which is shown above from my rabbit coloring page. Pin your child's coloring on the wall. Then, every so often - move it somewhere else! Can your child find the bunny picture? Put it in some interesting places - in the bathroom, on the front door, on a window, and so on. Your child will have great fun hunting that naughty bunny pic! You could also color in four bunnies - red, yellow, green, blue. Ask your child to fetch the green bunny and something else that is green from around the house! Or hide all four, and get your child to hunt for a particular color. These bunny games are great at Easter time, too. Hiding bunnies with a little stash of mini chocolate Easter eggs gives kids a great reason to hunt those bunnies! There are famous rabbits/bunnies of course, that you could use for your children to find - Peter Rabbit, Rabbit from Winnie the Pooh, Roger Rabbit, Thumper from Bambi - and Bugs Bunny, for example. Car washing and imaginary games Just a plain car washing time, but it brings so much laughter and satisfaction to my LO. We will sometimes play imaginary game like going to the beach or zoo with nothing but just pure imagination. Waiting for the bus at the bus stop, flag for the bus, getting coins out from the pocket to pay for the ticket. Riding on the bus while singing "the wheels on the bus" song. Or pretend looking at the animals under the table. Having picnic on the rug etc. Words everywhere! Then we stick them on everything, even ourselves! The end result is post-its everywhere...which they love! Take pictures of it too! (they are easy to gather together when done). This teaches the children that everything has a word and that Words Are Everywhere! Shopping helper
This can be used to teach sorting and helping and cooperation. Thanks Dawn! And here's another shopping game idea: Shopping Corner I ask for different things to sell. In this way he use to recognize aeroplane, lorry, bicycle etc. And also share toys with other kids. Thanks Fairooza! Shopping games for kids are some of the most enjoyable activities, as they find shops fascinating - products, money, and pretending to be a shopkeeper... it all adds up to a great imaginative game scenario. There are lots of shopping toys for kids, too, of course - shopping carts with play food, toy cash registers, kid shopping sets with soft toy food and shopping bag - but as you can see above, you can buy and sell any kid-friendly objects you have around the house, too! Once kids begin to see that items cost money, you can ask them how much you have to pay - one dollar, two dollars? Ohhh - that's expensive! It's great fun to count out some money, too, as kids then work out that once you give them the money - they have to give you the goods... although some of our little businessmen and ladies just want to take the money and run :) Let your child set up their "shop" and lay out all the items. They can use toy products, or real ones if you have anything suitable for them to play with under supervision. A banana, a can of beans, packet of potato chips and so on. Then you can write your shopping list - create it by talking out loud about what you want, and tailoring your shopping list to what is in the shop. Add a couple of items your child isn't selling! Then go though your list and ask - "Do you have any apples?" and so on, so your child can answer either yes or no. Playing with pasta
I give him basic commands like "put all of the pasta in the big blue bowl" or "use the red spoon to fill up the pink cup". He loves it. It's great for motor skills, co-ordination and to get them listening and following commands, learning colours and numbers. We even make shapes with the pasta on the floor or table. The possiblilites go on and on! We even pretend to cook dinner for the Teddies and each other. Thanks Chrissie! We used to have great fun making pasta shakers, using plastic containers with screw-top lids, decorating them with stickers, and filling them up with different sorts of pasta to make different shaker sounds. You can also have fun counting pasta! Take ten shapes of one kind of pasta, and ten other shapes too if you like, to do some 1 - 10 pasta counting together. There are lots of different pasta shapes - so check them out next time you're shopping and see which ones you think your child would like to handle. Playing clothes
And while folding dried ones by naming whose it is, what dress is it, color etc, it's fun & learning too. Thanks for this great ideas! Another funny game I remember was called "Pass the Sock." Ask your child to pass you a sock - then give it back! Then ask for another item of clothing - and give it back... and so on. You can ask for the sock again, of course - kids have a good giggle about that ;) Family tree photo craft Using plain cardboard, draw and cut out a tree trunk with branches sprouting upward (you can choose in what ways). On plain white butcher paper, draw big cloud with rounded curves. Together with your 2 year old, paint the trunk and "cloud" 2 different colours, and stick the branched part of tree to the coloured cloud - to make up tree. Then you and baby (using double sided tape) place family members "in position". Laminated family pics can also be used to make baby photo album to be always "tampered" and played with. Great idea, Konni! This would work well with young kids of any age, I think, and they will love seeing the photos of themselves, Mom/Mum and Dad! Plus their brothers, sisters, aunties and uncles, and grandparents. Little kids can get in a muddle about how people are related to each other and what that relationship is called. You can use the photo family tree often, pointing to family members and asking who it is, and explaining that he or she is an aunt, uncle etc. Don't expect your child to pick up all the details right away - time and practice are essential! This is the way we... This is the way we walk walk walk, The variations are endless. This is the way we wash wash wash this is the way we brush our teeth Thanks for that idea Kai Liu! Here are some more suggestions you can use for imitation games: Musical instruments
Or collect any musical instruments you have from your collection :) With a drum, bash out a simple rhythm, or even just one beat... then two... then three - and see if your child can copy it. Bash one pot once, the other one twice, and make two different noises. Singing Now sing it low... very low!! Then put them together. Then go up the scale... and down! Kiddie keep fit Jump up and down - oooh, long time since I did that! Take it easy, Mom! Then stre-e-e-tch your arms up high into the sky. Lots of great stuff for kids in this kind of exercise, as they are not only imitating your movement, but also learning to follow instructions with important words like up, down, high, low, and so on. Playing at the sink I fill a plastic basin with water and put it in the sink, then add some dishwashing liquid, or kid bubble bath and we make a really good bubble soup. Then I get the measuring pots, plastic jugs, he has these sorting containers of different colors, too. We use a large egg whisk to whisk up the water some more, as well as a big plastic spoon to serve up our bubble soup. He likes stirring up the bubbles too, and pouring bubbly water out of the jug into the pots. He also likes popping the bubbles in the sink, and throwing the bubbles onto the window in front of us! He'd play for hours if I let him. I usually put a towel under the chair on the floor, and he wears a cute plastic apron, when he wants to play at the sink he goes and gets his apron! Teddy bear game
Teddy bear, teddy bear, touch your nose, And then you can add some other lines of your own for your two year old to imitate, like Teddy bear, teddy bear, clap your hands, or wiggle your nose or bark like a dog! They really like the animal noise ones! And then they can think up some other actions all by themselves, and you end up copying them. Also, we did the rhyme above with a real teddy bear, and got the teddy to do the actions, moving teddy's arms and body. Thanks Tara - here are ideas for some more quick teddy bear games!
What do we need? Playing with a blanket
Sometimes I put a ball in the center and we see if we can bounce it off. Thanks everyone for your ideas, they are really appreciated!
|
