Some of you asked for toddler activities and play ideas for your little ones.
I listened to your wishes and I decided to kick-off this new category on my blog with this amazing article with 3 toddler activities by my awesome friend Paula who blogs at ThanksMommyBlog.com
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As a stay at home mom of two toddlers, I’m always on my toes. Sometimes we’re forced to stay in due to blazing summer heat or crazy summer storms so I got a little creative.
Using some colourful pool noodles, I came up with three easy, fun, and educational toddler activities to do inside.
- Pool Noodle Color Sorting Toddler Activity
- Pool Noodle Tower Building Toddler Activity
- Pool Noodle Necklace Threading Toddler Activity
These exciting toddler activities all boost fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, concentration, and a sense of self-fulfilment and pride.
If you’re interested in MORE DIY projects using pool noodles, check out this article. You’ll get 50 amazing and super easy ideas that your little one will LOVE.
What You Need
- Pool Noodles of different colors (I got 4 at the dollar store)
- Knife (kitchen or boxcutter will do)
- Bins
- String
- TODDLER (at least one)
Prep Work
Normally, I like things the easy way but this takes a little bit of prep work- but only a little.
The only prep work needed is to cut the noodles into slices. It’s a simple task but takes a few minutes per noodle. They don’t need to be perfectly cut, straight, or even the same size.
Our Fun and Educational Toddler Activities
Pool Noodle Color Sorting
Colour sorting is basically the act of sorting items by colour.
It is an exercise that strengthens fine motor control, hand-eye coordination, concentration and problem solving, determination and perseverance, as well as language development when discussing the names of the colours.
- Set up your bins near each other and spread out the noodle slices across the room.
- Designate each bin by color, either with labels or by placing one noodle slice as a marker.
- Show your kids how it’s done and watch them get to it. As an added bonus, have them call out the names of the colors as they’re sorting.
Pool Noodle Tower Building
Pool Noodle slices are great building blocks, so once we got tired of colour sorting we transitioned to building towers. We did by colour or mixed colours, mixed heights, and even built a little city.
Benefits of building blocks include strengthening of fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, early math and engineering skills, spatial awareness, creativity and logical thinking.
Pool Noodle Necklace Threading
Giant necklace threading was our third pool noodle activity. I tied a noodle slice to one end of a long string and had the kids thread as many “beads” before tying them together into a necklace.
Benefits of threading include strengthening of fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, creativity, cognitive skills, bilateral coordination, early math skills, and a sense of completion.
Final Take Back
We had so much fun doing these activities. The kids were thrilled during and after, with so much pride of what they were able to accomplish. They even did happy dances.
My name is Paula and I’m a mom of two scrumptious cuties and founder of ThanksMommyBlog.com. I hope I can be a centre of support, hope, and maybe a little humour for other moms through my own motherhood struggles. Check out some of my freebies as well as my top post, Easy DIY Toddler Bed Rail Bumper.