Activities That A 18 Months Old Toddler will Love

Boost your young toddler's thinking power while they interact with their favorite person; you!! Try these fun activities in the comfort of the home with your child.

Jun 07, 2021

1. Sing And Make Up Songs

Songs can be made up about anything, such as: things you see, touch, hear, or taste, just add a familiar simple tune and easy repetitive words and start singing with your toddler. Singing is a great way to exchange and teach new information in a fun way. 1 Exposure to formal or informal music increases listening memory (Welch et al., 2011). Vocal singing should be done most of the time but playing songs is also good. Voice singing can help children create more bonding and loving energy and memories with their parents. Parents can add puppets, ribbons, scarves, shakers, and bells to make songs more engaging for their toddlers. Please sing songs that have:

some finger movements in them.
different kinds of rhythms.
both fast and slow lyrics.
everyday nursery rhythms.
easy spelling in them.
animal sounds and easy counting in them.
repeating words or movements in them.
different musical instruments.

Create songs about

Animals that you see on walks.

Textures you touch.

Street signs.

The colors on your child’s clothing.

Actions that you see your child doing.

Foods that your child eats at meals.

Numbers, colors and things that your child likes.
Things such as manners or other things that you want to teach your child about.

2. Use More Recyclable Materials

These types of materials are naturally open-ended, they can be used in several different ways, they provoke manipulation, testing, thinking, problem-solving, and imagination. Recyclable items are fun, cost-effective, offer exploration, and are limitless, your child can independently use them or play together with you. When providing recycled materials, please make sure that they are clean, safe, and not too small.

Recyclable activities

Big and small boxes

Use several large boxes to make a tunnel for crawling through.
Create a bus or train using a big, large box.
Color and design a big box with various art materials.
Paint on small cardboard boxes.
Tape up food boxes, cartons, and other recyclable items and create a dramatic supermarket.

Yogurt containers

Fill up different yogurt containers with oversized pom poms for sensory fun.
Playing music on plastic containers, pots, or pans.
Putting things in and dumping them out.

Different size plastic bottles

Bowling by knocking down plastic bottles.
Making different sensory bottles.
Create shakers.
Opening and closeing bottle caps.

Simple Math Activities

Sorting. Use a variety of safe, recyclable objects and group them into different color piles.
Counting. Plant seeds in egg cartons and count seeds as you place them into the soil.
Speed. Running on plastic wrap at different speeds. You can also add music to make it more fun.

Simple Arts and Craft Activities

Painting on plastic wrap.
Sock puppets.
Texture boards with different pieces of fabrics, zippers, soft items, and large buttons.
Stamping with plastic bottles.
Painting cardboard and gluing different textures on it.
Gluing recyclable items onto paper.
Planting seeds in egg cartons.
Make a car tunnel by taping several paper towel rolls together.

3. Read More Picture Books

Each day read a mixture of picture books, texture books, pop-up books or audiobooks. The best type of books for young toddlers has bold and bright images of everyday objects. Pictures help children see how things look and can encourage them to identify things they like and then ask questions about them. Start with providing books with big pictures, simple descriptive words, short in length, feeling words, and repetitions. (Lacher et al., 2012) Suggests that sometimes while reading, make different voices and active movements such as dancing. Also use puppets, musical instruments or let your child hold a toy that is related to the topic of the story that you are reading.

Give your child space to look at books

Give time to your child to look at books, hold books, turn pages, pretend to be reading and imitate sounds. Parents should re-use words and ideas from story books that they have read with their toddler when doing other pretend play.

While reading with your toddler let them first do most of the talking and point out objects when they are finished then start reading the story to them. Please provide books daily in the home and have them at a level that your child can easily reach them.

Use verbal expressions

Verbal expressions can include asking simple open-ended questions, making realistic sounds, and using different tones for characters in a story. While reading to your child, try using different voices, tones, and sounds to convey emotions, animals, events, items, and characters.

Let your child choose the book

Let your child choose the book they want to read; it’s ok if they choose the same story. In such cases, find creative and fun ways to add something new when reading it, such as adding finger puppets.

Have different types of books available

Within the home have a variety of different books such as; different texture books, cloth books, hard books, educational books, alphabet-themed books, books that teach a lesson, animal books, large books, homemade books, audiobooks, and nursery rhyme books.

Choose hardcover books that are medium sized.

Choose books with bold images and realistic pictures.

Choose books that are no more than five pages long.

Choose books with large print.

Choose books that have different ethnicities of people with realistic features.

Choose books with simple action words, feeling words, songs, and repetition.

Choose books that are easily accessible to your child.

Choose books that can be read independently or together.

4. Filling And Dumping Activities

Use items such as square wooden blocks, big stones, water, large pom-poms, sand, loose part items or pretty much anything safe can be used to fill up containers, trucks, cups, buckets. Young children love the repetitive action of putting things in a spot and then talking it out; these actions help build skills in special awareness. The movement of filling and pouring also teaches repetition, cause and effect, it helps strengthen eye-hand skills and the function of things.

5. Take A Neighborhood Walk

Take a walk with your child in a new or close neighborhood. There can be a lot to see, smell, hear and talk about things that you see. Exposing your child to safe areas with other cultures can help them become more culturally aware and open.

On your walks check out new parks, collect nature items, visit some stores and try new foods. These walks are great for your child to see things come to life, they can get their inquiries answered, touch things, have bonding time with you, listen to sounds, taste new foods, and observe people.

Places to stop by

Stop at the library and look for a unique book or film.

Stop at the farmer’s market.

Make a shopping list together and go to a new grocery store.

Talk about the traffic lights during a walk.

Visit and play at a new park.

6. Do More Pretend Play

Your child should have space daily to partake in imaginative play. Pretend playing can allow your child to test out roles and things they have seen; they can re-say words and sounds, have a lot of fun, and learn more about something. Pretend play does not require an extensive setup or a lot of toys for your child to use because a large part of pretend play is based on your child using their imagination and creativity skills.

Some fun ideas to extend dramatic play

Playing with dolls.
Playing with a farmhouse and animals.
Playing with sea animals.
Playing and feeding babies.
Playing in a dramatic kitchen with plastic appliances.
Playing with a basket of pretend foods and dishes.
Pressing a real keyboard.
Talking on a play telephone.
Dressing up in costumes.

Create different theme topics, e.g. a grocery store. (you can add empty food boxes).

7. Do More Sensory Activities

Kids love to explore using their hands, sensory play is a great way for children to be engaged while exploring. There are so many materials that parents can put into a small or large bin. Choose materials that have different textures each time you do sensory play.

Sand, water, soil, oats, spaghetti, pinecones, large pompoms, large beans, large dry pasta, Moon sand, Slime, Corn starch goop, playdough, cloud dough, fake flowers, fake grass squares, recyclable small boxes, homemade mud, etc.
Always add some of these things: shovels, different size containers, plastic animals, sea creatures, sponges, different size containers, spoons, babies.
Parents can use their imagination and put different kinds of things once it's safe for their children.
Try to make sensory bins colorful and attractive looking to get your child hooked.

Welch.(2011,2,23). https://musicmindandbrain.wordpress.com/2011/05/07/psychological-aspects-of-singing-development-in-children/

Toddler Development Program by Samantha Ellis

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