Fun Activities For Your 1 Year Old

1. LITTLE DRUMMERS

Materials needed: Rattle, spoons, pots and pans, bells, cymbals, drums

What to do: Make music using percussion instruments.Children love this. Gives them an outlet for their energy and gross motor movements. 

Skills learned: Coordination, listening skills, and musical exploration

2. PLAYING HOUSE

Materials needed: Large cardboard box or store-bought play tunnel or playhouse

What to do: Create a fort out of a cardboard box, play tunnel, or playhouse. Include an entrance and an exit, and encourage your child to go in and out.

Skills learned: Social skills, gross motor skills and exploring their environment

3. TELEPHONE CALL

Materials needed: Toy telephone or old phone, Old cell phones are great too. 

What to do: Hand a phone to your child and keep one for yourself. Pretend to make calls, and hold conversations with each other or imaginary people. Use funny voices, and create silly characters on the other line.

Variations: Some play telephones allow you to record your and your child's voices and play them back, which can enhance the fun.

Skills learned: Language and social development

4. BEACH PARTY

Materials needed: Sand, water, buckets, spoons, plastic shovels, large tub

What to do: Sand and water play are great activities when your child reaches 18 months. Fill a large tub with water or sand, and give your child free rein to dig, pour, scoop, and more. This helps with their fine motor skills. Play with them and show them how to do play and poor and build. They love mimicking at this age.   

Variations: Have another child join in parallel play. Play dates are great for this age. 

Skills learned: Creative play, fine motor skills, tactile stimulation, and social development

5. TUBE TALK

Materials needed: Empty paper towel tube

What to do: Talk or make silly sounds to your baby through a cardboard tube, and see how she reacts and responds to the change in your normal speaking voice. Also make silly noises and letter sounds or even animal sounds. 

Skills learned: Auditory discrimination, turn taking

6. GO-GET GAME

What to do: Send your child on different "errands" around the house, asking him to "get" his shoes, bring you the ball, or find and deliver his cup. Children love being helpers and feel like its a big girl or big boy thing. 

Variations: Add silly directions, like "put the sock on your head,” to encourage a sense of humor.

Skills learned: Understanding directions, memory skills

7. STICKY STEP

Materials needed: Clear contact paper

What to do: Cut a piece of clear contact paper at least two feet long. Remove the backing and tape the contact paper, sticky side up, to the floor or carpeting. Then, let your child have fun running, jumping, dancing, or just standing on the paper while wiggling their toes on the sticky surface. 

Variations: Put small toys on the sticky surface and let your toddler experiment with trying to pick them up.

Skills learned: Sensory awareness, muscle strength, body awareness

8. SPOT THE DOT

Materials needed: Lipstick

What to do: Put a dot of red lipstick on your toddler’s face, and distract her for a few minutes before putting her in front of a mirror. If your child reacts to her image by touching her nose or trying to wipe off the mark, it indicates she realizes there is something out of the ordinary in her reflection.

Variation: Put a silly hat on your child’s head and watch her take it off.

Skills learned: Self-awareness and identity

9. LET'S COUNT

What to do: Toddlers love to count their fingers and toes, so show your little one how to touch each digit only once as you count out loud.

Variations: Count the stairs as you go up and down, count while you’re waiting for the light to turn green, and count the bubbles floating in the air.

Skills learned: Basic number skills, one-on-one correspondence skills

10. CRUMB WRITING

Materials needed: Baby rice cereal or finely crumbed crackers, cookie sheet

What to do: Spread the rice cereal or crumbled crackers on the cookie sheet, and show him how to use a finger to "write" in the crumbs. You could even to shapes or designs. 

Skills learned: Early handwriting skills, Fine motor skills understanding cause and effect.

11. COMMUTE

Materials needed: Play tunnel, puzzles, multi-part toys

What to do: Divide puzzle pieces or parts of a toy set into two piles, placing a pile at either end of a play tunnel so your child has to "commute" back and forth through the tunnel to complete his task.

Skills learned: Sustained attention, sensory processing, learning how to complete multi-step sequences