What keeps my toddler busy all day? A lot of things! But right now, mostly low-prep activities! I’m very busy taking care of my toddler and homeschooling my first grader so I try my best to make things simple. Hehe.
Sharing with you all today what my 2 year old’s schedule is like and some of his favorite activities. Hope you get some ideas too if you have an active little toddler at home! 😉
Daily Schedule
- 7:30 am: Wakes Up
- 8:00 am: Plays outside (Bikes or runs around with Luke at the garage)
- 8:30 am: Breakfast
- 9:30 am: Helps me with chores
- 10:30 am: Works on activities while I homeschool Luke (see below)
- 12:00 pm: Lunch
- 1:00 pm: Reads aloud with me
- 1:30 pm: Nap
- 3:30 pm: Wakes from nap, takes a snack
- 4:30 pm: Play
- 5:30 pm: Walk outside or exercise with me
- 6:00 pm: Bath
- 6:30 pm: Dinner
- 7:30 pm: Family time
- 8:00 pm: Get ready for bed
- 8:30 pm: Bedtime
Daily activities:
At 2 years old, we don’t do any formal homeschooling with Dylan yet. But kids sure learn a lot through playing.
He stays with us in the same room while I homeschool my 6 year old son. Sometimes, he listens to the stories but most of the time, he prefers to busy himself with his own activities.
These are some of the things that Dylan loves doing.
Art-related activities:
- Play dough
- Painting
- Coloring and doodling
- Playing with stamps
- Write on chalkboards or on the floor outside at the garage
Games and toys:
- Play with sand on our sand table
- Sensory play with various materials (sometimes just plain simple water!)
- Legos and Duplos
- Puzzles
- Wooden toys: Blocks, rainbow arc, etc.
- Color sorting: Sorting pebbles and bear counters according to their color
- Matching: Matching Toob toys with their respective photo cards
- Simon Says: Mandarin version to practice their action words vocabulary
- Playing with his toy cars
- Playing with random things around the house like a box of ribbons, rubber bands, and more!
Outdoor activities:
- Bike
- Scooter
- Running
- Going on walks
- Collecting leaves and flowers
- Throw ball/ Basketball
- Swim in inflatable pool
- Water fight / water balloons with older brother (ocassionally hehe)
Other activities:
- Singing
- Read-Aloud
- Climbing our furniture (which stresses us out for sure, but still we let him climb safely!)
- Tinkering with our drawers (not recommended! Haha!)
- Playing pretend with his brother
- Looking outside the window (haha, his favorite)
- Snacking: This baby loves eating snacks!
- Simple science experiments like baking soda and vinegar, magic milk, etc.
Chores he helps with:
- Place his finished plate and utensils on the sink
- Put clothes in the washing machine
- Hang laundry
- Wash his bottles
- Scrub/clean playmats
- Pack his toys away
- Wash the car
Regarding Screentime:
Mentioning only because I regularly get asked about this: Dylan doesn’t really get iPad time.
I can’t really say he has zero screentime because we don’t exactly cover our screens or have them shut off in his presence. Haha. For example:
- When we are watching exercise videos, he watches and joins along
- When Luke is playing some NASA videos on the TV or when Mor is watching a cooking show, he also gets to watch (though he doesn’t really “watch” as he quickly loses interest)
- I occasionally show them their home videos. Fun memories!
But he doesn’t really know anything about bright nursery song videos on YouTube or cartoons, as of now.
Conclusion and Final Tips:
As you can see, Dylan is plenty busy! Hehe.
Taking care of the two boys constantly, homeschooling and still doing a bit of work on the side, means I don’t really have the luxury to create elaborate activities for my toddler. It’s hard to keep a toddler regularly entertained though, and I get it!
Sharing some tips I learned from other moms:
- Involve the child in your daily tasks. Some chores might take a bit longer with them “helping” but they are learning along the way (and at least the chores get done, one way or another!)
- Rotate toys and books so the novelty doesn’t wear off. Hide most of their toys and books and give it to them a bit at a time.
- I assign my older son a lot of “play with Dylan” time so that I can get some work done. Haha!
Hope that helps!! Let’s enjoy these toddler years!
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