At-Home Favorites
Looking for ideas that will keep your kids entertained for hours? Try these time-tested kid favorites. You can create many of these toys using materials you already have around the house, and you'll probably have as much fun as your child does. Plus the assembly process is a great bonding experience for parent and child — something you can't say about many store-bought toys.
Shakes, Rattles, and Rings
Sew dried beans, rice, or peas into a sock or a piece of stocking; and put some sand or pasta into a plastic bottle (topped with a lid that stays put despite prying fingers!) — your toddler has a start on a percussion band. Stitch jingle bells onto a cloth (sew them well — if the bells come off, they're small enough to swallow!), and let the tambourine music begin! What about cymbals? Why, pie tins, of course!
Pull Toys
Tie a short cord to a box or stuffed animal to make a pull toy, or tie several boxes together with string for a train. But beware! Sixteen inches is the maximum length for cord; which reduces the chance it will create a strangling hazard. A toddler's ability to get entangled in seconds is amazing.
Homemade Blocks
Cut a clean quart or half-gallon-size cardboard milk container in half cross-wise. Push the two halves together to make a square block. A few dozen gallons later, you'll have enough blocks to keep a play group of toddlers happy for a year. To jazz the blocks up, cover them with plain paper or fabric and color the sides with different shapes (triangles, circles, and squares), capital letters, or numbers. Or glue on pictures of animals cut from magazines.
Who says blocks have to be square? Show your toddler how to build a giant tower from a variety of household items, including pots, pans, books, cardboard boxes, or cardboard tubes.
Puzzles
To make a beginner's puzzle, cut a hole in the top of an oatmeal box ½ inch larger than some puzzle pieces so toddlers can drop wooden blocks, measuring spoons, or juice-can lids through the hole. Or cut several holes of different sizes into the top and sides of a shoebox so your toddler can fit small cars and other toys inside.
To make an intermediate board puzzle, cut a large circle from the center of a heavy-duty cardboard box with an X-acto knife (using every precaution around both young fingers, and your own). Glue the piece of cardboard from which the hole was cut onto another square of cardboard, which will create the backing. Show your child how to fit the circle into the puzzle. Using other pieces of cardboard, make more puzzles in the shape of a square, a diamond, an arrow, and a cone. Paint them bright colors to add to their eye-catching appeal.
To make more advanced puzzles, cut the front of a cereal box into three pieces and show your toddler how to put them together. Or glue a colorful picture from a magazine like
Sock Puppets and Dolls
To make a puppet, slip an old sock onto your hand to figure out where the eyes should be, and sew on buttons (sew them well — buttons are choking hazards!) or round pieces of felt. If you want to be really creative, make a whole family of puppets and add yarn for hair, felt ears, red felt tongues, bow ties, or lace collars.
To make a doll, use one stuffed sock to make the head and torso, another to make the arms, and a third to make the legs. Then add felt eyes, nose, and mouth; yarn hair; and clothes; or leave her as is.
Bubbles
Make them yourself by mixing ½ cup water, ½ cup liquid soap, and 1 tablespoon cooking oil. To add to the fun, stir in some food coloring. A straw, an egg holder from an Easter egg dye kit (for those really big bubbles), or a wire or pipe cleaner bent into the shape of a
Play Dough
It takes a few gallons to get modern kids through elementary school, so why not learn how to make your own? In a saucepan, combine ½ cup salt, 1 cup flour, and 2 tablespoons cream of tartar. Then add 1 cup cold water, a few drops of food coloring, and 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil. Mix until smooth, and cook over medium heat, stirring frequently. When the mixture sticks to the pan, sticks together firmly, and is no longer slimy to the touch, it's finished. Turn it out onto waxed paper, knead it a dozen times, and let it sit. When the dough is cool, store it in a container with a tight-fitting lid or sealed plastic bags to prevent drying.
Now comes the fun. Sit down with you child and show him how to:
Roll bits of play dough into a worm or snake
Roll a bigger piece into a ball
Flatten the ball into a cookie or pancake
Pinch off little bits to make peas and put them onto a tiny play-dough plate
Prick it with a pen or pencil
Slice it with a cheese slicer
Cut it with a plastic knife
Cut it with cookie cutters
Supervise carefully to be sure your toddler doesn't try to make a “meal” of the cookies and pancakes! Remember that the fun and learning come from the doing, not the final product!
Silly Putty
Pour 1 tablespoon of liquid starch into a bowl. In a separate bowl, mix 2 tablespoons of white glue and 2 to 3 drops of food coloring. Pour the glue onto the starch and allow it to stand for five minutes, or until the glue absorbs the starch. Remove the mixture from the bowl and knead it until it reaches the desired consistency; more kneading improves the consistency. Store the mixture in a sealed plastic bag or in the traditional plastic Easter egg.
Finger Paints
Pour ½ cup cornstarch into a large bowl. Blend in 1 cup of cold water; then add 2 more cups. Microwave the liquid for eight to nine minutes, stirring every two minutes until thickened. Pour it into six separate bowls and stir in food coloring. Let it cool. Then roll up your child's sleeves, give him some paper, and let your little Picasso begin. Demonstrate how to smear a layer of a single color over a multicolored drawing, and then use a fingernail or plastic spoon to scrape through the top layer to expose the colors beneath.
For easy clean up, put paper, finger paints, and your naked toddler in an empty bathtub. Toddlers can do their Picasso number without constantly being reminded to not make a mess. You need to remain close at hand to enforce a few important no-no's: Don't turn on the water, don't dump out all the paint, and don't eat your masterpieces. Leave a few paintings in the tub to dry; then hang them on the fridge.
Science Fun
Simply stirring water into sugar or salt and watching it dissolve counts as a bona fide scientific experience for a toddler. So does seeing skin turn wrinkly during an extra-long bath, hearing a tea kettle sing, feeling the cool air inside a refrigerator, or smelling the aroma of cooking food.
Simply watching a tomato fall to the floor and roll until it bumps the cabinet teaches cause/effect, inertia versus motion. With so many fascinating things everywhere tots look, they don't need specific science training.
To really impress a youngster with science magic, though, have her put a teaspoon of baking soda in a small bowl. Then put some vinegar in a child-size pitcher and let her pour it slowly into the bowl. If you don't know what happens when you mix these two ingredients, you're in for a surprise, too. Of course, since you
Whether parents keep their households free of toy guns and rifles is a decision for each family. But if reducing violence is the goal, the best way is to curtail yelling and hitting among family members. If parents want to discourage children from re-enacting violent scenes, eliminate the one object that is clearly associated with an increased preoccupation with blood, gore, and violence: the TV.
Art Box
Decorate a box and fill it with an assortment of nontoxic supplies:
Bows and pieces of ribbon
Coloring book
Construction paper
Cotton balls
Crayons or markers (washable)
Envelopes
Glue sticks
Paper or old newspaper
Paper bags, cups, and plates
Pictures from magazines, greeting cards, and postcards
Pipe cleaners Stickers
Watercolor kit
Wrapping paper odds and ends
Yarn and string (16 inches or shorter)
Pull out the art box when you can enjoy it with your toddler. The possibilities are limited only by your imaginations! Younger toddlers can put stickers on paper plates and cups and dab markers onto newspaper. You can cut out the center of a paper plate to make a crown tots can decorate. Help older toddlers fold construction paper and glue on pictures or stickers to make greeting cards. Then drop them into an envelope and mail them to Grandma and Grandpa, who will cherish them more than store-bought cards. Here are some other crafty ideas:
Punch small holes on each side of an upside-down cup and insert pipe cleaner arms. Do what you will to create a face. Glue on cotton for hair and beards.
Glue magazine pictures onto paper plates to display on the refrigerator.
Lunch bags make great hand puppets.
Paper grocery sacks can be used to make masks. Cut oversized eyeholes.
Remember that toddlers don't care what they make as long as they get to roll, rub, pat, dab, and draw while they're making it. Adults might care about the finished product; little ones prefer just to putter.
Personalized Puppets
Cut out a picture of your child. Glue it onto a Popsicle stick, leaving room so the toddler can hold onto the bottom half. Voilà! Your child has a puppet of her favorite person! Create a family of dolls using pictures of other family members.
Dress Up
With so many garage sales around these days, it's easy to stockpile an array of wardrobe items befitting a queen, princess, mermaid, superhero, pirate, cowboy, or anything else your child likes. Keep your eyes open for cloth remnants, costume jewelry, hats, purses, scarves (pin them to shoulders; don't tie them around little necks), and shoes.
Kids will also appreciate things to put in the purse, such as an old comb or wallet. Applying a bit of color from half-used tubes of lipstick, eyeliner, and powder is a great accent for any outfit. (Make sure you supervise this part.) Turn your child into a superhero by pinning a pillow case cape to your child's shirt, bestowing a pizza pan shield, fashioning a tinfoil hat and wrist bands, providing a pair of gloves, and adding a plastic spatula to fend off the bad guys.
Water Fun
Kids love to play with water as much as parents dislike the mess. So open the dishwasher and place a dishpan filled with water on the open door. A lot of the splashes will run inside. Then, bring out the margarine- or yogurt-container boats, and add a cup of rice or dried beans (supervising to be sure she doesn't swallow them!) so she can scoop them into the cups. Add a touch of food coloring to the water — blue for a lake or green for the sea. When cleaning up, let the overflow drain into the dishwasher, but empty the dishpan in the sink.
An empty plastic dish soap or shampoo bottle makes a great squirt gun. Travel-size bottles are easier for little hands to squeeze. (Squirt guns are great bathtub fun, too!)
For fun in the tub, toss in plastic water bottles, clean plastic soda bottles, or hand-lotion bottles. Punch holes in the bottoms of some of the bottles to create a tot-sized shower (or give them a plastic colander to play with). Cut a liter soda bottle in half, smooth the cut edges with sandpaper, and show your child how to use the top half for a funnel and the bottom half for a cup. After he's finished straining water in the colander, store his bath toys in it so they'll drain and dry.
Down 'n Dirty
Toddlers
Of course they'll get dirty — make that filthy — but it's got to be better for kids to wallow in nature than to stare passively at yet another video. Certainly it's easier to clean up their bodies than their minds.
If you prefer a down-'n-far-less-dirty experience, sand is cleaner and can be more fun for toddlers to play in than dirt. If a traditional sandbox is too expensive, try these alternatives:
Dig a 6-inch hole, and line it with plastic. Punch holes in the plastic for the water to drain through, and fill the hole with sand until it's level with the ground. Cover it with another sheet of plastic weighted with rocks to help keep out the rain.
If the homemade kind is too much work, look for a rectangular plastic storage bin at a discount store, pour 6 inches of sand in the bottom, and pop your toddler inside — leaving the lid off, of course!
Fill an inexpensive plastic wading pool with sand.
Some store-bought, time-tested toys help toddlers develop everything from visual/motor skills to imagination. Tinker Toys and Lincoln Logs will provide hours of fun for years to come. (Keep any pieces small enough to be swallowed out of reach until your child is older.) With classics, more is better, so add them to your child's birthday wish list, next to the other tried-and-true favorites: books.
