5 Simple Every Day Toddler Activities
Before you read on, hear me say this: I am not a pro mom at activities.
I wish I was the mom who prepped activities the night before, but I’m just not. I’m not organized enough for that and also, I just really don’t want to cut into my precious “chill” and work time in the evening to do it.
So, if you’re the mom I wish I were and you’re good at finding and executing really neat, creative activity ideas for your toddler, I envy your tenacity and maybe I’ll get there some day. For now, this is a list of some of our easy, every day activities that my 3 year old enjoys doing and takes little to no effort from me.
Activity One: Paint. Paint all the things.
When Eliot was younger, I stayed away from painting because the mess seemed inevitable and it intimidated me. But once I started to embrace the chaos of painting, I was so surprised! Eliot can sometimes sit and paint for a solid 30 minutes, which is significantly longer than pretty much anything else keeps her attention.
I’ve learned that the more I change up what she paints and what kind of paint I use, the more it keeps her attention. So what do we paint? Here are some ideas:
-Construction paper, the obvious one. We use these very standard construction paper packs and they last us a while
-Canvases. We got some canvases given to us by my sister a couple months ago and I had no idea it would be such a hit. I think the canvas + easel combination makes Eliot feel like a pro and she loves it. We go through these canvases fast, but it’s her favorite thing to paint on and you can’t go wrong with this easel
-Any.thing.card.board. We keep all the amazon boxes around here. We love to paint boxes and often Eliot will end up playing some sort of pretend play with the box the rest of the day! Win-win!
-Fun wooden things. This is a newer discovery for us but has been so fun! We recently got a birdhouse painting kit as a gift and it was a huge hit. Here’s a link to the birdhouse painting kit!
Activity Two: Magna-Tiles.
I know, I know. You’ve probably heard of this, or already have them, and this feels redundant. But I’m putting this up here for any mom who either hasn’t heard of them or is reluctant to buy into the hype.
So many friends tried to convince me about how amazing Magna-Tiles really are but I was hesitant. Seemed like they cost way too much for what they were. But we asked for them for Eliot’s 2nd birthday from grandparents anyways, because I trust my friends. I will say, it took a few months before she really got a hang of it, but now this is an every single day toy. She loves them and I love how much imaginative play she gets out of them! She plays with them every single day! Here’s a link to the pack of magna-tiles we started with!
Activity Three: The Sandbox
We actually just got this sandbox recently and I’m already a big fan (it’s also on a huge sale right now, almost 50% off!!) . Yes, it’s messy and almost always ends in a bath but hey, that’s fine with me because that just extends the length of time I’ve kept the kids busy! I’ve found the key to the sandbox to be the accessories with it. Dump trucks, cars, shovels and especially this magnetic fishing pole.
Activity Four: Outdoor Kitchen
We got really lucky a few months ago when I saw someone post a really great kids kitchen on Facebook for FREE, my favorite thing. I responded at lightning speed and was able to bring it home and throw it in our backyard. I don’t know why, but in our family the outdoor kitchen gets played with dramatically more than the kitchen in the playroom. This outdoor kitchen is one we have!
Activity Five: Anything involving water and being outside
A couple years ago I picked up a cheap tiny kids pool like this one , for under $10 and it’s now one of our most used items. I throw together a couple kiddie pools, a sprinkler mat (love this sprinkler mat) and some pitchers and Tupperware and BAM, we have an outdoor activity to last a big chunk of the afternoon! Pro tip- stick the pool under a slide if you have one (always on Facebook marketplace for cheap), add the water hose and hype it up as a waterslide! We we get really crazy we’ll add a sprinkler too and you’d think the kids are at a waterpark by how excited they are!
Also, the outdoor kitchen and sandbox usually gut utilized during this time as well! They go to town in the sand, make pretend food in the kitchen with it and then rinse off in the water. So much imaginative play happening all at once!