Your Toddler...You Can...
Learns best through activity. He is getting better every day at carrying, climbing, leaping and running.
  • Provide a special place to play, with a variety of materials to explore. Inside provide shoestrings with items to thread: large beads, macaroni, and spools from thread. Include in the play area a pegboard with large pegs. Introduce blunt rounded scissors, and be sure to supervise. Use firm paper; old greeting cards work well.
  • Outdoors, save boxes and tires to climb in and over, or hang a tire for a swing. Toys for the sandbox could be strainers, bucket and shovel, empty plastic food containers and large action toys such as trucks or tractors. Push carts and pedal toys are always fun.
Takes great pride in developing skills and wants to do everything alone.
  • Scale toys, furniture and play equipment to your toddler's size and skill level to reduce frustrations. Offer toys that are not too small for inexperienced hands, nor too large for not-yet-fully-grown bodies to handle.
  • Let your child do as many things alone as he is ready to do. Make success easier when you can. For example, put milk for cereal in a small cream pitcher and let your toddler do the pouring. To keep shoes on the right feet, put a small dot on the inner soles of shoes, where your child can see it when the shoes are on. Then teach your child to make sure the dots can "kiss" when he puts his feet together.
Loves to learn by making a mess.
  • Let your child play with a variety of mess-making materials. Make time to play in the bathtub, in a wading pool, in a lake. Provide containers to pour into, sponges, dolls or dishes to wash.
  • Introduce finger paint when you find your toddler smearing messy things on walls, furniture or self. Mix dry tempera paint with liquid detergent. Use large sheets of paper and wear an apron. Encourage full, rhythmic arm movements. Don't push your toddler to make a picture; what is painted is less important than the process of exploring with paint. Date and keep pieces of art to compare a year from now; you'll see the growth!
  • Provide play dough and clay so your toddler can experiment with patting, pounding, squeezing and shaping something gooey.
Feels more secure when caregivers have routines and boundaries.
  • Keep rules simple and few, but enforce them consistently for every child in the family.
  • Structure your days in a pattern you can follow most days. Families have different needs, but try to keep your days and nights predictable.
  • Set a routine for bedtime and rest times. For exam ple, start a half-hour ahead of time with snack, tooth brushing and story. Even if your child doesn't sleep right away (or even at all during nap time), enforce the quiet time. Every child--and parent--needs some rest and "down time."

 

Source-"Play for 2 to 3," by Susan M. McFadden and Emily Garrett Sager. The University of Tennessee, Memphis.