Indoor activities for a 2-2.5 year old?

Emma A - posted on 01/27/2013

I am a nanny. I give my 2.5 year old ice cubes a container and thongs. He transfers the ice from one container to the other. then we add warm water and watch the ice melt. attention span 5-7 minutes.

stacking cups. If you do a letter, find items starting with that letter. make a tower with the stacking cups with the items hid. Child takes cups off in order to see what the treasure is.

hide and seek. I don't let him hide bc he is a good hider and there is stuff he can get into so we hide items. animals so forth

I live on a farm and I say ...... and the child guesses what the animal is. as they get older you can make it harder.

tamberine. 2 paper plates let child draw on them cut streamers put glue around the edge of plate, stick streamers, put lientils or beans on one plate place other plate on top and staple together. (I covered staples with tape to make sure no scratches.)

water play. sponges. rags. filling and dumping. talking about floating and sinking.

obstacle courses.

MJ's attn span for all these is anywher from 7-10 mins.

I have stations. 5 activities set up for him in the morning and let him choose which one he wanas to start off with. He has to clean up in between activities. If he doesn't want to clean up then he sits on the couch until he is ready to help (about 1/2 second) I have just started time outs with him. If he gets out I put him right back without reaction or verbalizing. He is starting to get it.

He is a great thrower, we "throw balls not toys" He knows this when he throws other items esp at other people he loses that item.

flop dance. MJ loves to have music play and then stop and he will flop to the floor.

My own road. lrge piece of cardboard draw roads a park etc. I use blocks for the city bldns and animals for country. We also go on a safari and put safari animals by the road.

Hey this is amazing I have several good ideas and here I am looking for ideas lol

re 2.5 is a very busy time. go with the flo. They also play independently with selfi initiated projects
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another great activity is paint aball put papter in a box put ball on paper and roll back and forth.

Alicia - posted on 11/21/2009

I love the dance time, we do that all the time.

We have reading time,

singing time,

you could get shaving cream and put it on your table and let him draw in it,

get a cookie sheet and put a little water in it and put toys in it and have a "water table", play doh,

youtube kids songs/videos and sing together,

build a fort with blankets and play in it,

draw portraits of each other (my son loves when I draw him, and he just draws a ton of circles and says its me lol),

get macaroni noodles and glue them to paper,

use washable markers and give "tattoos" (this one could backfire on you though if they find the markers by themselves and do tattoo time on their own lol),

to teach colors we do "color of the day" and my son runs around the house finding EVERYTHING with that color on it, and he LOVES IT, he gets so proud of himself lol,

could do facebook applications like the zoo one, or farming ones, or the fish tank ones,

roll a ball back and forth,

play pretend (like space man or zoo keeper with stuffed animals, etc),

race cars across the floor,

make a band using pots and pans and just bang on them,

or make an "air band" where you air guitar and air drum and stuff like that.. my son loves it lol

umm... yeah I'm running out of ideas lol... I got a three year old, so hopefully these work for 2 years old, i forget what exactly he could and couldnt do at that age.

Andrea - posted on 11/21/2009

finger paint, go bug hunting, cook/bake, play-doh, get a fun CD and have dance time, just move and groove. hope this helps and have fun this winter! what are the ideas you already have? were doing the same thing.