My son and I need more variety with activities. He is very active, always running around and moving, and has been walking since 8 months old, and can climb on anything and everything!! We play a lot together through the day and he also likes to explore the house and play with his toys in his room.
The thing is I am afraid that sometimes he is bored. I give him different things to play with and do, like playing in the pots and pans cupboards and playing with spatulas etc. Also emptied out random drawers and put his things in there so he can look and explore. Lots of other various things. He is very helpful around the house, he helps me do laundry, he loves opening the dryer and helping me put clothes in and then shutting the door. He also loves playing with boxes and odds and ends too.
So please! What do you all do with your young toddlers to keep them from being bored?
My little girl loves to be outside. So we go for walks or play ball outside. Just throwing one of those big bounce balls. Blow bubbles while she tries to catch them. She has a little kitchen & loves to play with it. Loves to read books! Try coloring with crayons...put him in his high chair & give him a coloring book or a blank paper & about 3 crayons. He will like it!
Mine is 17 months and these are some of the things we do-
Practice throwing balls. I like the bouncy ones you can find at the grocery store.
Get some hula hoops, mine has fun trying to jump in/out of them, crawl through them (you hold them up), step through them.
You can get some musical instruments, play fun music and let him play w/ the instruments and dance.
Basketball hoop (like the small little tikes one or over the door kind/ or you could just use a bucket) and have him throw ("shoot") the ball in. Mine love this.
Let him sweep the floor with your broom or get him a little one.
Play outside, chase bubbles, small riding toys, run
Play in a sandbox.
Read books
Print out a picture and let him color it with crayons
Go to the park
Water table outside, tea party inside or out (outside we use water, inside they are dry), wagon ride around the yard, sand box, dance, crayon coloring, I build block towers and he knocks them down, pull back cars, little tikes basketball goal, pretend shopping with his grocery cart...
Take hime to a home improvement store like Home Depot or Lowes. You'll have to watch out for carts and fork lifts (but they are usually good about blocking off the path w/warning signs/blockades). But the aisles are wide and during the day there is virtually noone there so he can run, explore, discover, push/pull/open/close doors/buttons/handles - its a sensory wonderland. Plus its air conditioned. And right now they have lawn tractors on display so he can sit on them and pretend to take them out for spin. My son's favorite thing to do was flip through the floor samples, hide in the hanging floor carpets, and open and close the doors on all the ovens and dishwashers. He also liked opening and closing all the cabinets in the model kitchens.
I used to take apart my couches, throw all the pillows and cushions on the floor and let my son climb all over them. It tired him out.
I think around this time, my son got his first flashlight. He loved running around shining it on everything.
They are so hard to keep busy at that age--tons of energy but not old enough for the super cool toys. A few more additions: Petco to see the hamsters and fish and stuff; riding the city bus; visiting a local construction site with heavy equipment; letting him push a light stroller around the block (good exercise). Also containers seems to be a big hit at this age--tupperware stuff can sometimes keep them busy for ages.
Now you need to assemble a word document with all these activities on it, divided by seasons--that way you'll have a go-to list when you're frazzled and can't think...like me! :)
Oh, and rotate toys so they don't get boring to him!
Well, besides everything you listed, we made 'forts' either by draping a bed sheet over the table or stacking up couch pillows
Otherwise unless it was REALLY cold, we walked, we walked and walked and walked, inspecting every blade of grass, rock, crack in the side walk, walked to the store, lots of different parks, around the block, around the block the OTHER way.
Baby pools in the summer in the front or back yard, sprinkler, just a pot of water is enough to keep a toddler occupied.
I should also mention, I think it's ok to let him just VEG OUT too. Pop in a video, watch a fave TV show, etc.
:)
We bought a soft tether ball (ball and rope only-balls come in different softness) and hung it from our deck. We taped up a bunch of packing boxes and use the tether ball like a wrecking ball. It is so fun building and knocking down. This we call our demolition area.
We would spend hours playing this game in the nicer weather. When the weather starts getting nasty, we recycle the boxes and put away the ball. Something to look forward to again when things warm up. Better start getting those boxes saved and taped again.
Some favorites:
Water table (can also serve as sand or dried bean table in cooler weather), hide and seek (toddler version), indoor obstacle course, dancing to favorite tunes, fort play. We also bought our oldest a real working stick vacuum with a telescoping handle that made it just his size. He felt like such a big boy and would beg to vacuum the floors for me!!! He could spend hours playing with that thing and give me a head start on cleaning floors!
I think one of the best things we learned was to rotate the toys. Both my boys get bored with seeing the same things all the time, but we have enough stuff that we can put things away and bring out some stuff they haven't seen in a while. Just today I happened to bring something out I thought they might have outgrown and the 2-yr-old spent all afternoon playing with it. No need to get new stuff when they have such short memories!
