Children enjoy running wild and free in the great outdoors, but sometimes that isn’t always possible. Particularly if you have young children. There are plenty of indoor activities for toddlers to satisfy their intellectual and developmental needs. With plenty of resources online to aid with creativity and the education of your little ones. Indoor activities for toddlers don’t necessarily have to be constructive, but there are plenty of ways of making these activities for kids into events that developmentally aid your child. Utilising the resources online, indoor activities for your children can help them fundamentally develop their fine motor skills and their problem-solving abilities.
Education is usually considered the traditional subjects, things like numeracy and literacy, and it is natural that parents and guardians gravitate towards some form of tutoring in these fields. While these are indeed important, there are other creative ways to deliver thinking skills to your children while not positioning them in front of a blackboard to learn. Using crafts as a way of helping children with their creativity is a great way to introduce them to the theory of making. Creating a handmade picture frame is a wonderful way of utilising this skill and also creating a homemade gift to be given to friends and family.
Making this picture frame couldn’t be easier. All you will need are lollipop sticks, glue, colours, and stickers. The wonderful thing about these types of indoor activities for toddlers means that, for children who are already used to creating, it is a task that doesn’t require a lot of supervision. So, you can let them explore their crafts skills in a way that’s dynamic and entertaining for them.
Creating handmade crafts is a lovely activity as it teaches children the idea of sentimentality and how people react to personal gifts. It encourages toddlers and children to interact with materials and constructively think about creation as well. Encouraging children to harbour this creativity also teaches them the value in items. Toys and gifts are expensive, but understanding the skill and detail that it takes to deliver a gift that is to a high standard of craftsmanship – this takes a lot of work. This is something that crafts illuminates for children as well. Children enjoy creating work and playing with items that they have crafted, so encouraging them to delve into arts and crafts like this handmade photo frame is a great way to introduce them to the joys of creativity. They won’t always be this young, so indoor activities for toddlers is a perfect way of keeping those mementoes of their early years as well.
A term that is passed around a lot is that of fine motor skills. These are the smaller muscles that help the more intricate movements. They are connected to the eyes and a lot of fine motor skills incorporate hand/eye coordination, finger, and toes movements and other small muscles. These fine motor skills may begin in the toddler phase, but as children grow, their bodies are learning more movements and adapting to different situations. Encouraging fine motor development helps with intelligence and physical development equally.
Fine motor skills can be developed by helping early years children recognise patterns in movements. Recognising patterns allows children the ability to create them as well. Indoor activities for toddlers helps children create these patterns and it can be done through a variety of games and materials to accomplish fine motor skills. Using play-doh to help with patterns is a great way of introducing children to the idea of fine motor skills is a positive and fun manner. Using play-doh as a base and a spaghetti stick, you can play small pieces of plastic straws in it. These are materials that are found around the house with play-doh being a typical example of indoor activities for toddlers.
There are a variety of methods that can be used to deliver these types of indoor activities for toddlers. For example, a parent or guardian could get the child to demonstrate how to make a pattern out of the straws by picking only two colours. The parent or guardian could model the pattern they wish to see and then ask the child to complete it. They could ask them to create a pattern out of all the colours available or to separate the straws out and start choosing the colours they want to create a pattern with. The options are limitless. This activity not only promotes fine motor skills, but it also teaches children colours and helps them to recognise and differentiate between them. Using lessons like this to creatively teach patterns and colours while also engaging with children’s fine motor skills are a perfect educational tool for physical and cognitive development.
Humans are sensory beings and this starts at an early age. Engaging your children in sensory experiences can be done as indoor activities for toddlers. Sensory play can involve your child coming to understand their surroundings using touch and taste to guide them. Sensory play allows children to learn using a combination of their senses in conducive ways for their learning experiences. Using imaginative and experimental games, children can engage in sensory play to help them learn more about their surroundings.
Learning through play, using a board that can be cleaned easily, place different colours on it and then cover it with a plastic paper. Let the child press down and sense those colours. Learning by pressing on them occurs because it will give the child the chance to feel the movement of the colours under the plastic sheet with their hands. These creative methods allow toddlers to experiment and become acquainted with a variety of sensory feelings and learn more about their environment. These types of indoor activities for toddlers also aid with their fine motor skills and language development as you can ask them what they’re feeling and perhaps describe it for them. They might not fully understand now, but their young minds are absorbing the information.
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