Toddlers love routines! Try to stick to the same schedule every day. From the time the children arrive for nursery school till their parents pick them up try and follow the same schedule every day. You'll find you'll have less discipline problems and more receptive toddlers if you stick to the routine. Toddlers hate to feel insecure and will take fewer tantrums if they know what's happening around them. Toddlers also love repetition. They love to hear the same story and they like to play the same games. Having the children during a Sunday school, nursery program or other 1-2 hours per-week programs, it's ok to have some of the same activities repeat themselves. Here are five easy activities to keep them busy without breaking the bank and they can be collected in a short amount of time. You'll also find five songs and ways to get children moving to them.
Shakers
Take a cardboard toilet paper tube. Using paper and adhesive tape, block off the end of the tube. Fill it up ΒΌ ways with uncooked rice and then tape the other side shut. Your child will enjoy making sounds with their new shaker. For other varieties, replace the rice with uncooked lentils, kidney beans, noodles, little pebbles and other non-toxic noise making things. Show the toddlers what you are putting inside and explain that they can't be eaten. Watch the child closely.
Match Game
Go around your house and find plastic containers with a lid or ask the toddlers parent to bring in some. Good choices are shampoo bottles and caps, hand-cream tubes and caps, margarine containers and lids, milk jugs and caps,... Make sure the containers are clean and dry. Set them out separately on a table and ask the children to match which lid goes with which container.
Paper Tearing
Sit down with the children and show them how to tear paper. There's a technique to it. They'll most likely crumple it up in the beginning. Have them listen to the sound and make strips all over. Try different papers, such as tissue paper, sand paper and cardboard.
Bean Bag Box
Use two or three supermarket boxes and cut off the tops. Have the children step back about five feet and try to throw (underhand) the beanbags inside the boxes. Use this activity to reinforce words like inside, outside, and beside. They'll be practicing their throwing skills as well. Now ask them what other thing can they do with beanbags. Wear them on their heads, on their shoulders on the top of their feet, hands out and have beanbags resting on their palms. 'Wearing' the bean-bags, make them walk, sit, and crawl.
