Table of Contents
Through a toddler’s eyes, their whole world is one big classroom filled with awesome things. At that age, they are quite inquisitive about new and creative things making it the right time to lay the foundation for future skills like counting and reading. The key is to play off the toddler’s interests. Answer and indulge in their curiosity to make them learn new skills.
Here we have 15 fun learning activities for toddlers assembled to help you sort through what would benefit your child in their future days.
- Displaying Their Name
- Reading Signs
- Counting Everyday Items
- Separating Objects by Type or Color
- Making a Shape Book
- Teaching Shapes in the Kitchen
- Finger Painting For Color Recognition Skills
- Incorporating Colorful Language
- Clothespin Color Match
- Paper Building Blocks
- Number Pom Pom Challenge
- Feed the Monster
- Counting Carrots
- DIY Musical Instruments
- Monster Craft
Let’s Check Out Each of These Activities!
1. Displaying Their Name: Best Fun Learning Activities For Toddlers
2. Reading Signs: Best Fun Learning Activities For Toddlers
Points our letters and words at the doctor’s office, on store signs, and the street boards. Read these signs out loud which will make your toddler visualize these letters and think of other rhyming words. Say a sign that says “Stop” for which your child could make rhyming words like hop, mop, and top.
If you read out loud the words slowly by enunciating them clearly, your toddler will be able to connect these letters to their sounds. This could be one fun learning activity for toddlers that can be done even while walking on the road.
3. Counting Everyday Items: Best Fun Learning Activities For Toddlers
2-year-old toddlers will be able to recite numbers from 1 to 10 in order but they will not have the hang of counting until their preschool days. You can still bolster their number recognition by counting while buttoning up their shirt or when giving them their dry snacks. You could also tally up the total when shopping for groceries or while serving them their meals. When counting, use your fingers to encourage them to copy you with theirs.
4. Separating Objects by Type or Color: Best Fun Learning Activities For Toddlers
The act of contrasting, comparing, and observing objects is a crucial part of early mathematics. Fortunately, toddlers are masters of sorting. In this fun learning activity for toddlers, you could ask your kid to group all their stuffed animals by color or by type (bears in one pile, cats in another). Get them to help you separate clean socks from the dirty ones while you do your laundry.
You could also try to make them put spoons of different sizes in their proper place. Before the age of two, sometimes toddlers start recognizing the difference between more and less. Engage with them by asking them things like, “Which pile has more and which one has the least?”.
5. Making a Shape Book: Best Fun Learning Activities For Toddlers
Children’s learning books usually convey a lot of information about shapes from a kid’s perspective of course. However, you and your tiny tot can make up your own bundle. Draw shapes on pieces of paper, flip through newspapers or magazines together, and cut out matching items from them.
You could also go for a walk and keep an eye out for distinctively shaped objects and snap their pictures even. Point objects that you think will capture your child’s attention and encourage them to do so too. Think of a square window, a rectangular brick, or a round tire. You could also snap these objects, take their printouts, label them what they are, and paste them on the wall. This could be their “Learning Wall”.
6. Teaching Shapes in the Kitchen:
Not all sandwiches are square and cookies need not always be round. Many yummy foods like bread, cheese slices, and pancakes could be cut into diamonds, ovals, stars, squares, triangles, and more. Outside the kitchen, you could make your toddler draw shapes out of cookie cutters on a piece of paper. Help them identify which shape they are and label them.
7. Finger Painting For Color Recognition Skills:
Hands-on exposure to colors is yet another fun learning activity for toddlers. Let your little one dip their fingers into and name what color it is as they spread it on a piece of paper. Once their masterpiece dries, you could scavenger hunt for objects that match those colors in and around the house. Talk to your child about how many different colors are there- from deep blue to sky blue.
8. Incorporating Colorful Language: Best Fun Learning Activities For Toddlers
When you talk to your toddler about anything that amuses them, use descriptive language as much as possible. This will help them to recognize different colors. Ask questions like “Can you put this blue ball in the yellow bin?”. During meals, ask them. “Do you want the yellow banana or the red apple?”
You can also try to wear a particular color on a particular day, say red on Mondays and Blue on Tuesdays and so on. Incorporating color-coded days is the best way for toddlers to learn to recognize colors. For instance, when wearing red on Mondays, give them a red apple for a snack, red smoothies for breakfast, have them bathe in bathwater tinted with red fizzy bath tablets and so on.
9. Clothespin Color Match: Best Fun Learning Activities For Toddlers
This clothespin activity not only helps toddlers recognize colors but also hones up their motor skills. Take a piece of cardboard and color them at their edges with different colors. Gather a set of colorful clothespins and have your toddler in them with their matching color on the cardboard. This will work wonders on their fine motor coordination since they have to pinch and pull the clothespins.
10. Paper Building Blocks: Best Fun Learning Activities For Toddlers
Paper is not as strong as a wooden block, right? Do this engineering activity with your toddler to make them understand that even a weightless object as a paper can hold a heavy object like a cookie on top of it when stacked together. Make little pyramids out of colorful craft paper and stack them in line. Place a strip of paper on top of this pyramid line and stack another line of paper pyramid on them and so on. Place a cookie on top of them, voila!
11. Number Pom Pom Challenge: Best Fun Learning Activities For Toddlers
Another fun learning activity for toddlers is the number pom pom challenge which involves hand-eye coordination and numbers. Make a cardboard tube maze with numbers written on it in a cardboard box. Have your kid roll a pom pom inside it through the numbered tubes in order by tilting the box.
12. Feed the Monster: Best Fun Learning Activities For Toddlers
Feed the hungry letter monster with the letter on the strip. Make a monster with a gaping mouth out of craft paper and attach a strip of paper with the letters of the alphabet on them at its bottom. Slide the strip to know which letter the monster is hungry for and make your kid pick up the correct blog and feed it to the monster. The monster has number cravings too so you could try a strip of numbers rather than letters.
13. Counting Carrots: Best Fun Learning Activities For Toddlers
Counting the carrots is a learning activity for toddlers that involves part-counting and part-crafts. Make carrot cut-outs out of orange paper and the sprouts from green craft paper. Have your kid put the right number of sprouts on each carrot. This activity teaches your kid about triangles, rectangles, colors, vegetables, and numbers.
14. DIY Musical Instruments: Best Fun Learning Activities For Toddlers
DIY musical instruments are super easy to make if you have some household items at your disposal. Experiment with your toddler to see how different fillers can make different sounds. Use pebbles, rice, beans, and other such items for the fillers. Try using these musical instruments in different rhythms. Tap and count when you play with these instruments.
15. Monster Craft: Best Fun Learning Activities For Toddlers
This is yet another fun learning activity for toddlers that has ties with other multiple activities that help toddlers learn. You and your toddler can make cute little monsters with teeth and nails. Make your toddler count the number of eyes, feet, ears, and teeth. Thus, with their creative juices flowing they learn their numbers too.
In Conclusion
Always be around your toddlers when they engage in learning activities that involve objects. Even though they are bigger than babies, they still haven’t developed a sense of what to eat and what not to. That is, beware of them putting small pieces in their mouth or eating glue. Be around them which will also make them feel more enthusiastic. Hope our list of all the fun learning activities for toddlers helps you bond with your child better.
Learning Activities For Toddlers FAQs
1. What should toddlers learn first?
2. What should a two or three-year-old be learning?
3. When should a child know their ABCs?
4. What activities help toddlers learn?
5. What are some fun learning activities for toddlers?
Reviewed By:
Nimrat Sidhu - Pediatration
Dr. Nimrat S Sidhu is a practicing pediatrician for about 5 years now and holds an MD pediatrics degree. She was the topper of her batch, has always had a keen interest in her core medical field, and is specially trained for neonatal resuscitation.
She has published multiple research papers on pediatrics and is interested in topics like Neonatal care, skincare, baby growth, vaccination, growth, and development.
