The most delicate creation on this planet is kids. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that kids are just like sponges since they are highly absorbent of what happens around them. These little beings are extremely sensitive, receptive, expressive, and reflective to their surroundings.
1-2 years is the golden age for the mental development and physical growth of a child – The same age at which you need to pay special attention to your little one. You must know what and how your child learns at this age.
The best medium through which your children can learn is, playing and having a healthy social interaction. Not to mention the vital role your effective communication with them will play.
Talking about my own experience, I felt like I’m not doing my job the way I should. I would just feed my kid, clean and dress him up and then get busy in my own schedule. But thankfully, I realized in time that my little one needs my attention more than anything. So, I searched and searched on the web about what learning activities I can perform with my 2-year-old.
After trying and testing lots of different games and tricks, I found the following ones loved by my toddler. So, I thought sharing it with all of you guys would be worth it.
So, let’s have a look at the list of best learning activities for 2-year-olds that I compiled for y’all.
10 Playful learning activities your 2-year-old would love
1. Ask your child to dress up on his own
Spread a pile of clothes before your child and ask him to put on what he likes by himself. This might help him think more critically and imagine himself in different dresses. Not that you can’t help him. Of course, you can aid him in decision-making but leave the most of it for him. Once he’s done dressing up, appreciate him and tell him how good he looks.
This will help your child in thinking more creatively, and your appreciation will make him confident about his actions.
2. Plan a Scavenger hunt
Sense of exploration is instinctive to children. You can take advantage of their curiosity and set up a scavenger hunt for them. It can be like; asking him to find the red-colored product out of different products in the supermarket, looking for the objects of different shapes, making him search the bookshelves of a particular letter or a specific number or word.
You can give him a challenging task pretending that you have tried to find something but failed, and it is he who can find it for you. He will love to undertake this mission impossible to make it possible. Once he succeeds, don’t forget to tell him that he did a great job.
3. Make your 2-year-old paint
Painting is the most desirable activity for children. This activity involves the child’s faculties of mind, hands, and eyes. Painting enables a child to use his fingers and also strengthens his grip on the brush to use it properly. At the age of two, if you have trained your child to use a brush with a strong grip and care, in his later age, he will be able to use the other tools with greater strength and care.
4. Play with Sponges
Playing with sponges can be an interesting activity for your child. Also, it’s very easy. You just need a neat and clean sponge, some water, and a couple of bowls. Fill the first bowl with water completely and leave the other one empty. Ask your little one to dip the sponge in the bowl full of water and squeeze it with full strength into the empty bowl.
I bet your kid is going to find this very interesting and enjoyable, just like mine did.
5. Cereal-race
Grab four deep bowls from your kitchen and a pair of plastic tweezers –two for yourself and two for your kid. Fill two bowls with cereal equally; O-shaped would be good. Now, give one cereal filled and one empty bowl to your toddler and do the same for yourself.
Now start the game by telling the kid to transfer the cereal from one bowl to the other using tweezers. Tell him that the one who’ll transfer all the cereal first will be the winner.
You can also use grains of uncooked rice once your kid’s grip on the tweezers gets better by practicing on cereals. It will make him try even harder and focus more diligently.
6. Make Use of Family photographs
Hanging photographs of friends and family members in your child’s room can help him improve his memory. You can label all the pictures and tell him to read after you. In this way, the kid will associate each word with a picture and eventually learn it after the process is repeated a few times.
Once you feel like your baby now knows who’s nana and who’s aunt, remove the labels from the pictures and then again ask him to tell you who’s who. It will make him think critically and remember what he learned.
7. Involve your kid in gardening
Gardening can prove to be a wholesome activity for your kid. Since it requires physical/muscular movement for digging, it will not only help improve your kid’s muscular strength but also boost his gross motor skills.
Also, activities like putting the seedlings in place carefully and using the gardening tools will make him more conscious and focused.
8. Draw up his body on a large sheet
Make your child lie down on a big piece of a blank white sheet. Draw an outline image of his body on the paper. Tell your kid to lay down on the sheet silently and calmly until you trace his body. Through this activity, your child will learn self-control and patience.
After having traced his body, ask him to tell you where his nose should be and other parts accordingly. Now, make him color the drawing.
9. Play “red light, green light.”
We all know red light and green light are the signals meant for getting a start and having a stop. You can use them to make your child practice self-control and patience. It can teach self restraints to the kids as to where to compromise and how to negotiate. It enables your child to face conflicts without getting offended.
For example, using cardboard, make “go and stop” signs and color them green and red, respectively. Ask your toddler to stand at a distance from you and move towards you on showing the green/go sign and stop on showing the red/stop sign.
10. Indulge in book-reading
Although book-reading might sound too much to some of a few, it can be beneficial to boost your kid’s learning skills at a young age. No need to start with hard-to-read books.
Learning books for 2-year-olds can be a great choice in this regard. By imagining himself in the story, your kid can have a better grasp of the plot, and he’ll definitely remember it to tell to his fellows.
In addition, you can introduce him best potty training books too!
Why is it important to engage with your children?
The first two years in a child’s life are very crucial. This is the time that forecasts the coming events in a child’s life. While many call it “terrible two,” I would call it “incredible two.”
Your children are in dire need of your company at this time. The kids fall back upon their parents for their survival and growth. Therefore, the more you pay attention to your children, the better it will be.
Not only in the first two years but also when your kids grow up, must you take out time to engage with them and listen to what goes on in their minds. Motivate and encourage them to be better versions of themselves and achieve their dreams.
Below I have enlisted the reasons why It is so important to give your children your time and attention.
Boosts self-confidence
Children spending time with their parents develop a realization of being valued and of self-importance. Your engagement with your children in their activities can be the best source of their grooming and confidence building. Spend time with your children, even in trivial activities—just a bike ride, instead of a long drive.
Makes the family bond stronger
Sharing day-to-day activities with coordination and harmony make the families strong and confident in all respects. Such families are emotionally tied up. It creates adaptability to all pleasant and unpleasant situations as a family.
Sharing activities of common interest like hobbies, favorite books, sports, and movies bring the family members closer to one another, which ultimately creates a positive impact on children.
Promote positivity and good health
A harmonious relationship and good time spent between the children and the grown-ups bring about behavioral changes in the children. Their behavior becomes more and more decent and harmless. According to reliable research, teenagers who have less interaction with their elderly family members are more likely to become addicted to drugs like alcohol, marijuana, or at least tobacco.
It has also been observed that the children who dine with their parents eat more properly and adequately than those who eat on their own and alone. As a result, they are healthier.
Makes them kind and caring
Children spending time with their families receive a lot of care from their elders. If they receive the care, they will indeed become caring towards others in their lives. It is “as you sow, so shall you reap.” Therefore they feel like it’s obligatory for them to be caring.
Best Learning Toys for 2-year-olds
Below I have enlisted 2 of my favorite educational and learning toys that your 2-year-old will love!
LeapFrog 100 Animals Book
This 100 animals book by leapfrog has six double-sided pages with pictures of different animals on each one. Three different learning modes enable your kids to learn about different animals – from the farm to the forest.
All your kid gotta do is touch the picture of the animal and set the “animal name” mode before that, and it will say the animal’s name. By setting the “fun fact” mode, on touching the picture of an animal, your kid can listen to interesting facts about it. The third and last mode, “sound mode,” will tell what sound does an animal makes.
On touching the “music button,” kids can also listen to animal songs. Last but not least, two language modes are available. You can switch from English to Spanish anytime!
It’s easy to carry around and comes with 2AA batteries; however, it is advised to use new batteries for regular use.
Sesame Street Elmo’s On The Go Letters
This toy can be of great use to introduce letters to your 2-year-old. Its fold-able plastic case contains all the alphabets. These letters are not fixed in their spaces; hence can be popped out of their fittings. Each of these spaces features an image of either a sesame street character or a thing that starts with that letter.
I would highly recommend this for a 2-year-old as it offers a fun and learning way to practice the alphabet. Last but not least, it’s very easy to carry around and store without losing any of its alphabets.
Conclusion
Our daily life activities might make us so busy and tired that we forget how important it is to pay attention to our little ones. We just think that feeding them in time and keeping them neat and clean is all that’s essential. But no, that’s where we all are doing wrong. I have been through the same, so I know!
In this article, I have compiled all the necessary information, along with some fun and learning activities for your 2-year-old. So, once you start engaging yourself with them, you’ll realize what you have been missing. Not only will it help your little one become more vigilant and intelligent but also, it will freshen you up after you’ve had a hectic day at work!