Toddler Tuesdays - Week 12 of the 12 weeks of winter

Welcome to week 12, the final week of ‘The 12 Weeks of Winter’.  Spring is right around the corner and i’m sure everyone is looking forward to some more reliable sunshine.  This weeks activity for ‘Toddler Tuesdays’ is Teddy Bears Picnic.

You will need -

1. A blanket to use as your picnic rug.
2. Some stuffed toys or dolls to invite to the picnic.
3. Some unbreakable cups and plates and children’s tea set would be ideal.

Instructions -

For morning or afternoon tea invite your child to the Teddy Bears Picnic.  Have them assist you to gather the items and set them up in the lounge, family room or another area of your home that suits you.  Serve up your child’s morning or afternoon tea including a drink and make sure there is a little something for each of the guests.  This is an open ended imaginative activity so be fun and creative.

Focus -

Imaginative play is a very important step in development.  Semi structured activities such as this provide a comfortable framework of language your child can use to play.  Mealtimes are a regular occurrence so your child should already feel familiar with that process.  Adding the teddies and change of setting can encourage development of additional language using describing words and instructional words.

If you have not already provided some feedback about our ‘Toddler Tuesdays’ activities we would love to hear from your now.  Please go right ahead and leave a comment here or post an image or comment to our Facebook page.  If you enjoy the activity we would encourage you to share this post with your friends.

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Toddler Tuesdays - Week 11 of the 12 weeks of winter

Welcome to week 11 of ‘Toddler Tuesdays’.  You can find more of our ‘Toddler Tuesdays’ activities here, we hope you are enjoying them.  This week’s activity is Rainbow Fish.  You may already be familiar with the children’s book, The Rainbow Fish, if not you may like to extend the activity by borrowing this book from the library.

You will need -

1. 1 paper plate.
2. Gluestock.
3. Scissors.
4. Coloured spots - you may like to cut out magazine pages as spots, wrapping paper, coloured paper, or these spots we have prepared for you here.  You’ll need quite a few spots, especially if you have used a large dinner plate sized paper plate.
5. Marker pen.

Instructions -

Have all of the items ready for your child at the kitchen table or toddler table before presenting the activity to your child.  The ability of your child will govern how much assistance you provide to them with the activity, encourage them to try each step.  First cut a wedge shape from the paperplate, the wedge will then be glued on as the tail of the fish and the opening become the fishes mouth.  The coloured dots can then be stuck all over the fish to create a rainbow fish.  Finally give the fish an eye using the marker and you are all done.

Focus -

This activity has a heavy focus on fine motor skills and co-ordination.  When your child is cutting encourage them to keep their thumb on top.  If they struggle with that concept you might like to draw a smily face on their thumb and remind them to make sure they can always see the smile when cutting.  Even removing the glue lid and twisting up the glue encourages hand strength and fine motor control.

If you try out one of our activities please let us know what your toddler (and you) thought.  Feel free to leave a comment here or post an image or comment to our Facebook page.  If you enjoy the activity we would encourage you to share this post with your friends.

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Toddler Tuesdays - Week 10 of the 12 weeks of winter

Welcome to week 10 of ‘Toddler Tuesdays’.  You can find more of our ‘Toddler Tuesdays’ activities here, we hope you are enjoying them.  This week’s activity is sensory play with your very own goo!

You will need -

1. A large plastic container or ice-cream container
2. 2 cups cornflour
3. 1 cup of water
4. A painting apron or old clothes
5. Optional - 2 drops of food colouring
6. Optional - towel or plastic sheet to cover your floor or table

Instructions -

You may like to do this activity in an empty bathtub to contain the mess, or use a towel or plastic sheet to cover your table or floor.  Have all items ready but don’t mix your goo together just yet.  Depending on the age and ability of your child they may be able to do all of the mixing themselves or you might need to do this for them.  Place the cornflour into the large contained and add your food colouring if you are using it.  Next add the water to the container and start mixing using your hands.  This may take some time.  Encourage your child to play the mixture as they are mixing and to describe what they are feeling if they have the language for that.  If they don’t you might like to commentate for them.  Once it’s all mixed together let them have some free play.  You will find that when you move the goo quickly and compress it, it will hold together and once you stop pushing it will become runny again.  This is an open ended task governed only by imagination.

Focus -

This activity encourages the strengthening of fine motor skills and co-ordination using sensory play to manipulate the goo.  Touch is the focus of this sensory play.  Many prems have sensory issues so it’s important to work within your child’s limits with this activity.  Some may like to stir with a spoon but not like to get their hands grubby.  Some may be ok to touch it but only using gloves.  Work with what you already know about your child to make this activity fun for them.  You may need to model getting grubby so they are comfortable with that.  As this activity is open ended it is an excellent base for imaginative play and language development.  Encourage the use of descriptive words whilst playing.

If you try out one of our activities please let us know what your toddler (and you) thought.  Feel free to leave a comment here or post an image or comment to our Facebook page.  If you enjoy the activity we would encourage you to share this post with your friends.

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Toddler Tuesdays - Week 9 of the 12 weeks of winter

Welcome to week 9 of ‘Toddler Tuesdays’.  You can find more of our ‘Toddler Tuesdays’ activities here, we hope you are enjoying them.  This week’s activity is based on the children’s rhyme 5 little speckled frogs, however we will only be using 3.  If you are not familiar with the rhyme the words are -

3 little speckled frogs

sat on a speckled log

eating some most delicious bugs

yum, yum.

One jumped into the pool

where it was nice and cool

now there are 2 more speckled frogs

glub, glub.

Each time through the song 1 more frog jumps into the pond until there are no more speckled frogs.

You will need -

1. 3 popsticks or straws.
2. Sticky tape.
3. A copy of our free printable frogs and log which can be found here.  You will need to cut out these items.
4. Crayons.
5. A large piece of paper, A3, scrapbook page or newspaper.
6. Glue stick

Instructions -

Set out all of the items at the kitchen table or toddler table ready for your child.  Assist your child to stick a pop stick or straw to the back of each of the frogs so that they can jump off the log and into the pond.  Assist your child to glue the log across the mid section of their page.  Encourage your child to ‘colour’ a pond at the bottom of the page.  Use appropriate key word phrases to encourage your child along the way.  Once completed sing the rhyme through with your child and encourage them to have their frogs also jump into the pond.

Focus -

This activity promotes fine motor skills and is a great opportunity for language development.  You may use key phrases like, ‘stick it’, ‘turn over’, ‘green frog‘.  Remember that even when your child isn’t responding to your comments you are imprinting that language and correct grammar on their brain for retrieval when they developmentally get to that stage.  If your child is already using some of those key words themselves then add an additional word to your phrase like, ‘big brown log’.  This rhyme is a great opportunity to introduce counting, 1, 2, 3.  It’s also a fun and happy rhyme so you might encourage discussion about the frogs being happy that they are now in the nice cool pool.

If you try out one of our activities please let us know what your toddler (and you) thought.  Feel free to leave a comment here or post an image or comment to our Facebook page.  If you enjoy the activity we would encourage you to share this post with your friends.

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Toddler Tuesdays - Week 8 of the 12 weeks of winter

Welcome to week 8 of ‘Toddler Tuesdays’.  You can find more of our ‘Toddler Tuesdays’ activities here, we hope you are enjoying them.  This week’s activity is Dolly takes a Bath.

You will need -

1. A doll or other washable toy.
2. A plastic tub full of warm water, you may like to place it in the bath, on the sink, laundry bench or a tiled area.
3. A flannel.
4. A towel for the floor and a towel for dolly.  A small hand towel may be adequate for dolly.
5. Soap, either liquid or bar, whatever your family uses.
6. Optional - a small bath toy
7. Optional - a toothbrush

Instructions -

Get everything ready before introducing your child to the task.  Encourage them to undress dolly and then bath dolly in the same order that your child would normally experience their bath.  Sing your regular bath songs, wash dolly, brush dolly’s teeth, let dolly play, finally take dolly out of the bath and wrap in the towel.  Use appropriate language along the way asking what comes next, encourage identification of objects that they need or want and body parts.  Do not leave your child unsupervised with baby’s bath water.

Focus -

Imaginative play is vital for social and emotional development.  Imitation is one of the first forms of imaginative play and many children will naturally imitate things that they see and do.  Some children however don’t develop these imitations naturally and tasks such as the activity for today help them to better integrate some social and emotional skills that they may be lacking.  This activity also promotes language development and sequencing.

If you try out one of our activities please let us know what your toddler (and you) thought.  Feel free to leave a comment here or post an image or comment to our Facebook page.  If you enjoy the activity we would encourage you to share this post with your friends.

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