What Can You Do With a One Year Old??

I wanted to share about a few toddler activities I've tried out with my Liddy-Diddy. After she turned about 14 months, I became desperate for some activities to keep her busy and/or distracted for short (or long!) periods of time. :) Some have worked GREAT! Others...not so much. Let's just say I have a very active toddler who has a hard time sitting still at times, unless it really GRABS her attention!! :) So, in no particular order, here are a few projects we've tried in the last year!

Paint In A Bag

This one was pretty simple: You squeeze a few different colors of paint (I used tempera paint) into a Ziploc bag, seal, and tap to the table. I know it looks like Liddy was having fun here, but to be honest, she didn't care all that much about it. I had more fun mixing the colors and drawing shapes with my finger or a non-sharpened pencil! :)

"I'm bored with this, Mom. What's next??" ;)

  

 Jell-O Play Dough

Where else do I turn for brilliant toddler activity ideas? Why Pinterest, of course! I found this link here and boy was it great! I unfortunately didn't have any Jell-o at the time, so I just used sugar (since that's basically what Jell-O is, right??) and some food coloring and it turned out perfectly soft and moldable. Apparently when you actually use Jell-O it smells yummy too!! This was a hit with Liddy! She loved picking up the pieces with a spoon and pushing shapes into the dough. She didn't quite understand rolling it out yet, but that will come. We'll definitely do this again! The only thing is, you do have to let the dough cool for a while, so make sure you allow for that extra time!

Rollin' in the dough ;)

 Pom-Pom Push Through

Another big hit with my girl! This was a super simple task - all it required was that I stop at Hobby Lobby to purchase some pom-poms! I bought the large bag with varying sizes cuz I'm fun like that. :) All I did was cut holes into the lid of an old butter tub and then we pushed the pom-poms through! I made one a circle, one a square (sorta) and one a triangle. I figure we can use them for shape learning later. I've also heard of people making colored borders around the shapes to match the color of pom-poms to help with learning colors. The only problem with this is that pom-poms end up E.V.E.R.Y.W.H.E.R.E and with Quincy, that doesn't work so well since he eats them. Hehe. :) Otherwise - fabulous!

Poking the pom-pom's through!

 Pipe Cleaners & A Colander

This is super simple - all you need is a colander and some pipe cleaners! Then your kiddo(s) can poke them through the holes. Alas, Liddy didn't care much about this one. Funny since she loved the pom-pom one! I haven't tried it again recently, though, so she might enjoy it now that she's a little older...

"Right here, Mom?"

Rice Bin

Another super simple activity. Empty a bag of rice into a tub or 9x13 pan. Toss in a bunch of kitchen spoons, measuring cups, bowls, and other little toys. The end. :) Lydia loved this one too!! She especially loved filling cups with rice and then dumping it all over the floor. So fun for Mommy... ;) We did take this outside a few times over the summer too, and that seemed to work better since all I did was sweep up the bigger piles of rice, and left the rest for the birds! :) I think this would have worked better in a larger tub that would be more difficult for her to tip over (another problem we had...hehe). But it did keep her busy for quite a while! The clean-up was really the only negative. I've also heard you can do this with dried beans, though I haven't tried it due to it being a choking hazard at the time. Now that she's better about not putting things in her mouth, it'd probably work better. :)

Puttin' the rice in the measuring cup

Digging for toys!

There were a few other projects we tried, but they're still on my camera! Once I get them uploaded I'll have to post about them too. :)