I need activity ideas for an 18 month old!!!💞

My 18 month old has been loving making pillow and blanket forts with me and we read books inside. Last night we did glow sticks!

love it! Sounds so cute! Although my daughter would definitely try to eat the glow sticks😆

Following, because I also need ideas! Normally, he's at daycare, but this last week, we've been on winter break, and he has cabin fever BIG TIME!

I recently tried taste safe paint and my daughter has LOVED it. Its 2 cups water, 1/3 cup corn starch and 1 tablespoon sugar. Then heat in a pan stirring until it turns to a hair gel consistency and you can divide and add food coloring. I gave her a cheap paint brush and some white cardboard and she was thrilled.

Can also make ooblek in a similar line, just half water half cornstarch in a bowl and then you can add food coloring if desired and mix. It's hard when pressure is applied and slips through fingers when not touched. Soo fun.

You can try baking or cooking with her too, if you have a toddler tower its helpful but if not you can sit at the table and have her in the highchair then give her small things she can do, like here is a cup of flour, dump it in the bowl. Ok here is a cup of sugar, dump it in the bowl etc.

You can practice pouring with various size cups and bottles. Put out some towels on the kitchen floor or do this in the tub if you dont have floors that can get wet.

Can also design an obstacle course that you can guide her through. Set up during nap time and then it's a fun surprise to see and explore. If you have any climbing stuff include that, make tunnels with a blanket and chairs, use colored paper for little pads to jump to, etc.

I love this thread! We've been doing some drawing and painting for fun this week. We have also been playing with cushions to make tunnels and forts. Reading if he brings me a book. We have a book that is a first words book so we read that together and point to things.

Today I tried a color matching activity I thought I'd come back and share. We were in her playroom and I've been working on colors with her, mostly because she can say yellow and it's the cutest thing ever so I try to get her to say it often, but she doesnt say other colors yet. So I got out 5 clothes pins and said let's find 5 things that are yellow, and i showed her/counted the clothespins then grabbed a yellow toy & set it in front of the pin and said ok that's one! Then kept pulling out other things/repeating the color & how many until we had 5. She didnt quite know how to help just yet, but if we do this again I'm sure she will start to participate & help find items. Today she just kind of watched/listened to show she understood what I was doing. I then did a few other colors & changed the number of clothes pins. You could use literally anything to set out & indicate how many items to find. 3 pieces of paper and 1 item on each piece, etc. Just for the visual count since numbers are hard to grasp yet.

Following for the ideas

STICKERS
Get those colorful dot stickers (you can get a huge rainbow pack on Amazon for like $10)

You can use them as a fine motor activity, color sorting, prewriting practice and more!