Activities to do with your 2 year old

[Sixty Second Parent]

Here are a few ideas on how to help your two year old grow and develop.

There is something special about two year olds. Everything is wondrous and magical to them. Their imaginations are really taking off and they have such a passion for life! Here are some tips for developing your two year old's learning.

• Encourage make-believe play by having a wide range of pretend toys such as plastic kitchen utensils, plastic play food, doctors kit, dolls and babies.

• Make simple books by cutting out pictures and gluing them with your child. Talk to them about what they think is happening in the pictures.

• Take your two year old to a park so they can practice running, jumping, climbing, sliding and swinging -tires them out too!

• Have your child learn about classification by sorting through the washing. They can put socks with socks and shirts with shirts.

• Provide paints and boxes so your child can decorate them - while doing this you could talk about the colors your child is using and experiment with mixing them. For example, "what will happen if we mix yellow and blue?"

• Make roads for your child to drive their cars on- you could use masking tape ( I used toilet paper once - not such a great idea when it came to cleaning up!!) Trace a road in the dirt outside - draw a road on the pavement with chalk. By following these "roads" your child is working on developing her physical fine motor skills.

• Put a few dishes in the sink with some dishwashing liquid and have your child "wash" them for you - two year olds love to help out and do what you do.

• Use puppets to teach your child about feelings: one puppet could be laughing and you could ask your child how does this one feel? Then move onto angry and sad. This helps children put words to feelings so they can describe how they are feeling to you.