Buddy turned two this weekend. I can’t believe it. When I look at the picture above, it’s hard to believe the little boy in the top (Buddy at 14 months) is the same boy as the one in the bottom picture (Buddy at 22 months).
It’s been an extremely busy weekend filled with a Thomas the Train birthday party (more to come on that soon) and lots of out of town family. I haven’t had much time to blog this weekend, but I wanted to reflect on this occasion. One of my goals of this blog was to find easy activities to do with Buddy and share them with others. I’m pretty happy with most of the ones I’ve done so far, and I hope they’re useful to you.
Here are my favorite ten activities that I’ve done in the last year with Buddy:
2. Making Rain Sensory Activity
3. Fun with Homemade Play Dough
6. Cornstarch and Water Sensory Play
7. Repurposed for Fun: Water Bottle and Straws
8. The Snowy Day Indoor Snow Activity
9. Fishing for Magnetic Letters
I’ve done so many fun activities with Buddy this year, it was hard to pick just ten. (And if you’re looking for more ideas, please look around on the blog. I have lots of them!) Now I need activity ideas for Buddy as a two year old. If you have any good ones, please share in the comments.
I just want to thank you for all your great ideas! I am a kindergarten/first grade teacher who has just retired. I have the delightful role of looking after my first grandchild 3 days a week. We have used so many of your ideas in our everyday play. Being a mother of 4 myself, I have a few tricks up my sleeve (and lots of original toys stored in my attic!) However, I love that you take household items and make them so much fun. Our Nicholas just turned 2 and seems to be on par with your Buddy for age and ability. I love that your activities have fthat all important fine motor/gross motor component built in. Thank you so much for sharing and inspiring me! Right now we are having lots of fun with play dough activities and hiding things in plastic eggs!
I’m so happy my activities have been helpful to you! Some plastic egg activities are on our agenda soon. Thanks for reading!
Wow ai love them already we r so trying them out thx for sharing.
You’re welcome! I’m glad you are enjoying them!
Thanks for all your ideas. I’ll be looking after my granddaughter who has just turned 1 in a few weeks time. My daughter is returning to work after being on maternity leave and as she and her husband are shift workers I’ve been researching lots of activities to keep us entertained. I have saved most of your suggestions to my Pinterest board and so will have lots of great games to play with her. I love how they involve fine motor skills and curiosity. Thanks again. Sue (from Australia)
Thanks so much for reading! I’m sure you’ll have lots of fun with your granddaughter.
These are great! Thanks for sharing!
You’re welcome! I hope you and your little one enjoy them.
I have been using a rice tub with our granddaughter for months now and, just like your beach towel, I put a blanket down first. Most of the rice is captured on the blanket and it is easy to pour back into the tub when she is done. Or you can shake outside if there are dust bunnies/pet hair on the blanket from being on the floor.
How do you get them to participate? Mine would just put everything in their mouth and not do the actual activity
I picked activities that I thought Buddy would be interested in. One year olds have a lot of natural curiosity. Sometimes things didn’t work out as planned. But a lot of times, Buddy would want to at least try the activity.
I literally love all of these! Thank you for sharing. My little one year old seems to get bored easily so I can’t wait to try these!
I’m so happy you found some activities you want to try! Hope they went well.
I love making homemade playdough with/for my 5 year old but I gave some to my 19 month old to play with tonight and he did exactly what I expected – popped it right into his mouth. LOL. How do you stop this?!
I’m also wondering about the rice bin. I’ve always wanted to get one out for the kids but ALLLL I see is a whole big bin of rice all over my floors. Lol.
Love your ideas and am definitely going to be trying them out!
No idea how to stop putting play doh in the mouth but there are lots of taste safe recipes. I actually never went through that phase with Buddy, so I don’t have good advice for you. I do love the rice bins, but they are a mess. We always do ours in the kitchen which usually benefits from a good sweep at the end of the day, anyway. Good luck and thanks for reading!
My little one loves to play with LEGO’s in the bathtub.
We’ve never done that, but I bet Buddy would love it.
We had so much fun making the sun cathcer. We did a love heart for a valentines theme ❤️
Love, H and Baby N
That’s great! I still use ours years later.
A fun sensory activity I did with my three children was put shaving cream on the side of the bathtub during bath time. They loved to feel the foam and smear it around. As they grew, I would “write” and teach the alphabet in the shaving cream. Easy clean up and it smells good too.
That’s a great idea! Thanks for sharing!