Top 10 Learning Games for Toddlers

by Keri Wilmot View Bio

Tips to Manage the Challenges!

Toddlers like to be in control and are quick to move from one task to another. Try not to give them too many items at once or it can be overwhelming.
Monitor the sizes and types of toys they play with, since this age group is still often very interested in wanting to put items in their mouth.
Toddlers are learning how to entertain themselves well for longer periods of time, don’t get frustrated if they move on fast from what you’ve offered.

So many adjectives come to mind when you think about toddlers, their interests and personalities! Depending on the time of day, toddlers can be talkative, shy, silly, imitative, and full of independent spirit, as they are often well known for their colorful displays of emotion through tantrums. It’s never too early to offer toddlers fun opportunities through play that will improve their developmental skills and promote a love for learning.

Toddlers love simple, repetitive activities that challenge their balance, improve eye-hand coordination and inspire imagination. They are learning vocabulary words and colors, but don’t worry if you they don’t exhibit an excitement for letters or numbers yet. Toddlers are improving their language to communicate with others, and often prefer to engage in pretend play, most notably by mimicking their parents or their favorite characters.

Reading Nooks
Reading is one of the best learning games for toddlers. The simple act of identifying animals and any objects on the page and pointing to them over and over again serves as a tremendous way to improve their language and communication over time. Read books everywhere, in tents, the highchair, on the potty, snuggled up in bed, and on long road trips in cars! For toddlers learning to manage their emotions, getting them comfortable to read books on their own in snuggly places can be a great activity to redirect them to when you start predicting a meltdown is on the horizon.

Puzzles & Shape Sorters
Wooden form board puzzles and shape sorters help toddlers learn to use their hand-eye coordination to match puzzle pieces and place them into the correct location. Organizing all the pieces at once though can be hard. So, manage the pieces for them by offering choices. Let’s say you are doing a farm puzzle together. Hold the cow in one hand and a goat in the other. Encourage them to pick one by pointing to it and saying the one they want. If they don’t get it correct, it’s okay! Just reinforce the vocabulary word, smile, praise them and keep going. They’ll learn quickly!

Sensory Play
Toddlers love to knead dough, play with sand, and paint with their fingers, splash in water but it’s hard for them to use their imagination to create something specific. Instead get out the toy cars and trucks. Drive the cars through the paint or over the dough to make tracks. Fill the dump truck with sand and watch it fall out. Create mountains with dough or sand and crash them over. Create a little water table out of a clear box, add some soap for bubbles and turn it into a toy wash for baby dolls and cars. Then do it again and again. Toddlers love to repeat things they love and that is what helps them learn new ways to play on their own.

Drawing
You can draw or scribble with chalk, finger paint, and mess-free markers. Toddlers aren’t able to color in the lines yet, so scribbling and making marks on the paper is what they love most. Tap the marker to make dots, draw a straight line, horizontal line or a circle, then see if they try and imitate you. If not, making colorful marks on the paper in any direction and interacting with you in the process is when toddlers are at their best.

Obstacle Courses
Many toddlers are active and love to challenge their gross motor skills to improve their strength, balance and coordination. Crawl like a bear to the pillows, jump from one pillow to another, throw a ball into a laundry basket, then do it all over again. Use what you have at home to make short, silly obstacle courses to burn some energy, especially when you can’t get out to a playground.

Ball Play
Toddlers love kicking, throwing, chasing and catching balls of all sizes, shapes and textures. Catching small balls will be difficult, so find one that’s a little larger and a bit easier to catch. Most toddlers love to play soccer and kick the ball back and forth. But don’t worry about teaching them difficult rules, just run around together and have fun kicking the ball into open space and chasing after it.

Imitation Games and Songs
Simon Says, Ring Around the Rosie, Monkey’s Jumping on the Bed, Wheels on the Bus and the ever so popular Baby Shark, are fun songs and games toddlers like to play. Spend a few moments each day singing songs, while encouraging them to improve their vocabulary and motor skills, by imitating the motor actions of the songs with their hands and bodies while they sing along.

Stack Those Blocks & Boxes
Wooden blocks, plastic blocks, cardboard boxes, cereal boxes, shoe boxes, you name it, many toddlers love stacking anything. But watch out, just as quickly as they build it, they take lots of pride in destroying it! Don’t stop them from kicking it over, see if you can teach them to wait for a few seconds while you countdown from 5, before they do it. This is a great way to teach toddlers how to manage their impulses.

Bubbles
Toddlers aren’t just interested in popping bubbles with their hands and feet. You can clap bubbles, poke bubbles, jump on bubbles, stomp bubbles like dinosaurs with your feet and even eat bubbles with your hands like sharks. It’s hard for many toddlers to coordinate blowing bubbles on their own, but absolutely give them the opportunity to try dipping the wand and work together to blow the bubbles in the meantime.

Stop and Go with Ride-On Toys
Many toddlers love to be outside propelling ride-on toys and tricycles. In a safe open area, play “Red Light and Green Light.” Toddlers are learning all about safety awareness, so it’s important for them to learn how to stop fast and wait for their parents to signal when it’s time to go. This skill can be very important when out in community places.

Don’t stress about having to buy all sorts of materials, use what you have at home! The magic in playing with toddlers is being patient and knowing how to appeal to their personalities and play style.

Tips to Manage the Challenges!
- Toddlers like to be in control and are quick to move from one task to another. Try not to give them too many items at once or it can be overwhelming.
- Monitor the sizes and types of toys they play with, since this age group is still often very interested in wanting to put items in their mouth.
- Toddlers are learning how to entertain themselves well for longer periods of time, don’t get frustrated if they move on fast from what you’ve offered.

Top 10 Learning Games for Toddlers

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