Depending on what you want to do with your toddler, you have so many choices to pick from. There are arts and crafts, outdoor activities, indoor activities, learning activities, movement and music activities, and the list for activities for toddlers goes on and on! Here are some of the best activities for toddlers that provide stimulation as well as simply having some fun and enjoying your little one.

Learning Activities for Toddlers – Matching and Sorting

The best learning activities for toddlers stimulate their senses, specifically senses of touch and sight, and make them think. While they are not ready for incredibly complex thought just yet, you would be surprised at what they can do! Matching and sorting are probably some of the best activities that prompt learning and stimulation because you can match and sort anything including colors, textures, shapes, sizes, and whatever else you can think of. Great manipulatives for this activity include large foam beads, wooden shapes, crayons, blocks, and of course, Memory game style cards.

Arts and Crafts Activities for Toddlers – Messier is Better

Toddlers are still very much exploring their world and what better way to explore than letting them get into some of the gooiest, stickiest, messiest arts supplies around? Because toddlers are very tactile little people, different textures intrigue them more often than not. Consider doing things like finger painting with food coloring or creating sand art by making multi-color sand and gluing it to a poster board that your toddler can be proud of. Be creative and paint with unusual items like feathers, toothbrushes, sheets of bubble wrap, just whatever you can think of that will create a variety of textures for toddlers to see and feel.

Indoor Activities for Toddlers – Imagination Rocks the World

Do you remember having the best time ever with a cardboard box and an empty paper towel tube? Going on pirate adventures with your toddler or flying in a spaceship are just the tip of the iceberg of what imagination can bring to life. Your toddler is just starting to experiment with imaginative play at this age and with your encouragement, can have the ride of a lifetime just sitting inside a cardboard box on your kitchen floor. Not remotely high-tech, but more fun than anything else…except maybe bubbles.

Outdoor Activities for Toddlers – Appreciating Natural Beauty

Do you ever take a walk with your toddler and go at her pace? You will notice that she will stop for everything that she sees, whether it is a trail of ants meandering towards an ant hill or a butterfly that has stopped on a flower. Adults more often than not miss the natural beauty of the world because they rush day in and day out with the intent to get things done only to start over again the next day. For a toddler, everything is new and full of wonder. Take a walk outside with your little one. It doesn’t matter if you make it around the block six times or only two houses down the street in the space of an hour. See the world through your child’s eyes, realizing the amazing realities of the natural beauty that surrounds us all and enjoy this all too fleeting time with your toddler.

Movement and Music Activities for Toddlers – Shake, Rattle, and Roll!

What is life without a little music? If you have a toddler, by now you likely know that toddlers like to make noise simply because they can. You can take that intense curiosity and turn it into music by making something as simple as a drum out of a coffee can or shakers out of plastic Easter eggs. Your toddler will love every minute of this free-for-all noise-fest. Once you tire of the “music” that your toddler makes, you can bring out some tunes that are fun to move to and get your child dancing with or without you. A couple of great examples for songs that are fun to move to are Shakable You and Bounce, both by the Imagination Movers. Don’t be afraid to think outside the box when it comes to kids songs because there are some songs that exist that are fun for parents too!

Please share your ideas about activities for toddlers in our comments section!