WHAT do you do all day?
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WHAT do you do all day?
| Mon, 08-14-2006 - 6:25pm |
My creativity fails me. I'm trying to find things for my 18 month old to do all day. We do the usual...go to the store, to the park, etc. What do you do all day?

Jessica this is a great time to introduce some learning and art and music time. Quite frankly with this age you wear the little buggers out and then enjoy their nap time~! If you are looking for ideas for learning for this age I have lots.
Traci
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My boys are 2 & 4 yrs old and love to go to our community pool. I also take them to parks as well. Do you have community activities for the kids? We have a festival in the early fall where there are tons of activities for the family. Have you checked out your library? Our library has crafts day once a month and other activities throughout the year.
About 45 minutes away from me (I live in Michigan), Ann Arbor has a Children's Hands-On Museum for young kids and toddlers. It's inexpensive to get a daily pass and you can pack your own lunch and go at your own pace. I took my boys there and spent 3 hrs there. IT's huge. Do you have anything like that in your town or close by?
We go to Kindermusik and to the Library story time.
Hi Traci -
Sorry to horn in on a thread that wasn't addressed to me, but I was wondering if you also had any ideas for entertaining a nine month old? If I do row row row your boat one more time I'm going to jump off the roof, and she doesn't really care for her toys....she seems to prefer everything she shouldn't have....
Any ideas on fun stuff for this age?
Thanks!
Cookie
18 month old activities ideas...
Dora the explorer: Help your child learn basic Spanish by watching Dora with them. Reinforce the words learned in the show that day. Children can learn a lot more by watching educational tv with parents then by themselves. (sesame street is also a GREAT show!)
These are some activities I do/did with my kids and kids in my preschool classes. Most of the time was free play time for this age but I would do at least one large motor skill and one fine motor skill each morning followed by a children's exercise video(we did yoga for little ones) and then some down time like reading before nap.
Large Motor Skill
Developing large motor skills can help your child later on to excel at sports :)
Activities you can do are:
Sock basketball-have your child play basket ball using a laundry basket and socks
Color jumping- buy a twister game and call out colors for your child to jump on
hop scotch- buy rug remnants from a carpet store and paint the hop scotch on rugs (it might take a bit for little ones to "get it" )
Car Wash- put a small amount of water in a bowl with soapy water and let your child wash all the outside toys.
Lilly pad jumping-lay out four or more large hula hoops close by one another and tell your child they are a frog hopping on lily pads. Count as they hope to learn their numbers.
kickball- buy a large playground ball and teach your child how to kick and run to bases (use cut up boxes for bases)
baby baseball- I love the t-ball sets they have for small kids! Help your child swing and run to bases
Fine motor skills
Here are some great websites with free curicculum ideas...for this age I would not do more than 30 min a day.
http://www.letteroftheweek.com/
http://www.first-school.ws/
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Activities for 9 month olds
Reading is a great way to help your
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