Home-Learning Activities For Toddlers
Even though kids don’t typically start public schooling until kindergarten, that doesn’t mean you can’t start teaching them at home before that. In fact, many experts stress the importance of at-home learning from a young age, especially in terms of reading and math. If you don’t have a background in education, though, you may not know how to help your toddler learn at home.
If you’re looking for some fun activities to teach your toddler the basics while you hang out at home, then consider these six home learning activities for toddlers.
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Counting Activities
Early math support for kids can make a huge difference in terms of their achievement as they enter school. Therefore, it’s important for parents to work on early math skills with their toddlers from home. You can do this by simply counting objects with your toddler, or you can make it into a game where they have to drop the correct number of objects into a container based on the notated number. Really anything can become a counting activity if you’re creative enough!
Counting activities with small objects can help with number practice as well as fine motor skills development. Furthermore, these activities are an easy way for kids to learn about number association and can help them learn to add and subtract more easily as well.
5
Taste Testing
Believe it or not, snack time can easily become the perfect at-home learning activity if you structure it the right way. In fact, the team at KinderCare says you can transform snack and mealtime into an educational experience by talking about the food with your little one.
To do this, simply ask them questions about the food, like how it tastes, feels, smells, or looks. You can also compare and contrast foods on the plate or sort them by certain characteristics.
4
Scavenger Hunts
Early learning isn’t just about identifying colors and numbers, though. It’s about learning how the world works. Luckily, you can encourage outdoor play and sensory awareness through activities like scavenger hunts.
Kids love hunting for items around the house or outside, and the act of looking for these items and labeling them is actually quite educational. You can also add in shape or color recognition by doing scavenger hunts where the lists say things like “one blue item” or “find an object shaped like a triangle.” These types of hunts are exciting, and they require a higher order of thinking skills, which means your toddler is using brain power and problem-solving skills.
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Online Learning Resources
Toddlers can learn many early literacy skills through engaging, fun activities and games. In fact, you can find many such resources for core reading skills on websites like Reading Eggs.
A highly experienced team of teachers, educational writers, animators, and web developers created the Reading Eggs program to help children develop core reading skills and strategies from a young age. These core skills are essential for sustained reading success, and the program can help children as young as two years old learn to read. By incorporating Reading Eggs into your toddler’s daily routine, you can prepare them for the same type of structured learning they will encounter when they start Kindergarten.
2
Matching Games
Even toddlers love games like Memory, Go Fish or anything else that involves matching pairs of items. However, these games aren’t just fun to play — they’re actually highly educational.
According to research by the Oxfordshire County Council, matching activities require a certain amount of visual memory and pattern discrimination. The identification of similarities and differences helps children practice problem-solving skills and visual recognition, which can help them in countless ways as they grow.
1
I Spy
Chances are, you played I Spy as a kid. So why not start the game with your toddler at home?
Games like I Spy help develop your child’s vocabulary, plus it teaches critical social skills like turn-taking and cooperation. While the most basic version of the game involves color recognition, you can change the game up to work on shapes or even letter sounds. For example, instead of saying, “I spy something yellow,” you can say, “I spy something that starts with H,” and say the letter sound instead of the letter itself. This engages different areas in your child’s brain and develops their language skills even further!
Whether you’re homeschooling your kids or just supplementing what they hear throughout the day, at-home learning can be fun, even for your toddler. And with these six new activities to pull from, you and your toddler will have tons of fresh things to do all season long.
Sources: KinderCare, Reading Eggs, Oxfordshire County Council
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