At age two, your toddler is most likely starting to develop abilities to strategize and understand simple concepts, acquire new vocabulary, and learn to sort colors and shapes. They are also developing hand-eye coordination, balance, spatial recognition, and social skills. These games—including concentration and memory games, pretend play, art activities, sensory bin ideas, and colorful crafts—will give them plenty of opportunities to develop their growing skills while letting their imagination run wild. So, dive in and get ready to discover some educational entertainment for your little ones!
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- Games for 4-Year-Olds
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- Games for 7-Year-Olds
- Games for 8-Year-Olds
- Games for 9-Year-Olds
- Games for 10-Year-Olds
1. Gingerbread Cloud Dough Sensory Bin
This gingerbread sensory bin includes scented cloud dough to engage your little one’s senses. Providing cookie cutters and other child-sized tools will give your toddler plenty of fine motor practice.
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2. Marbled Doily Hearts
These marbled hearts are a beautiful craft for Valentine’s Day—or any time you want to spread a little love! Have your two-year-can start by squirting fluffy shaving cream out for this craft; even that first step is sure to be a hit. Then, help them to marble the foam with paint and press paper doilies on top. This activity makes for a unique sensory experience and results in lovely, textured artwork! The marbled doilies can be cut into hearts and used as textured wrapping paper, room decorations, or for sharing heartfelt notes with family and friends.
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3. Kitchen Match-Up
Your toddler will love matching everyday kitchen utensils to their proper places on this memory board. To create this fun challenge, you’ll simply trace distinctively shaped tools on paper and then let your little one match the object to the shape. This game will keep them busy as it builds spatial reasoning and problem-solving skills while developing their vocabulary.
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4. Size Sorting Box
This simple but engaging game will challenge your young learner to sort markers, crayons, or objects of their choice into their proper slots. You can make your little one their very own sorting box by cutting holes in the top of any container with a lid—that’s it! Then, lay out some different-sized objects and your little one can have a blast trying to figure out how to insert them into their box.
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5. Have Fun with a Colorful Game
This color-matching game requires toddlers to use fine motor skills to maneuver Duplo blocks onto their correct places on the board. Set out Duplo blocks in simple color arrangements and challenge your child to match the colors as they add in their own blocks. To further enhance their learning, you can say the name of each color Aloud as they fill in each space with the correct block.
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6. Number Two Learning Game
This is a great way to celebrate your toddler turning two. Draw a large two—or any other number—and let your little one color and trace to their heart’s content. You can also cut and paste other shapes or objects while practicing their counting skills. This is a quick way to develop their motor skills while introducing numbers and counting.
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7. Learn Shapes with a Physical Activity
This fun two-year-old activity requires only a small ball and some painter’s tape formed into various shapes. You and your little one can roll a ball back and forth across the floor. As it rolls over each shape, you can call out their names to reinforce their learning—or even encourage your child to do so.
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8. Cork Painted Snowflake Craft
This wintery craft requires only construction paper and some corks to use for painting. You can cut out a large paper snowflake and then invite your little one to create their own snowy masterpiece by painting circles with corks. Not enough for your toddler? You can also let their imagination run wild and incorporate glitter, stickers, or even beads!
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9. Bubble Painting With Bubble Blowers
This creative painting activity requires only regular bubble mixture and liquid food coloring, but your little one will use them to create some truly striking art! All you need to do is mix a small amount of food coloring in with your bubble mixture. Your kiddo can then blow bubbles directly onto white paper and watch as a magical scene emerges!
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10. DIY Cut-Up Straw Bracelet
Do you have a toddler who’s passionate about accessories? This DIY colored straw bracelet is a simple and inexpensive activity for learning about patterns and colors while developing fine motor skills. Simply cut some different colored straws into small sections to act as your “beads”. Next, guide your little one in stringing their beads onto string to craft charming bracelets. They’ll love wearing and showing off their creations!
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11. Create A School of Colorful Forked Fish
These colorful fish require only cardstock, tempera paints, and plastic forks. Your young learners will love painting with these unusual “paint brushes”—forks! They can get creative experimenting with different ways to hold the fork— tapping, scratching, or whirling them to create a variety of different patterns and shapes.
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12. Make Some Bubble Wrap Eggs
Bubble wrap makes for a fun and interesting texture for kids to explore; it’s also a great way to develop their fine motor and sensory skills, as they have to resist the urge to press down too hard and pop the bubbles! For this egg-cellent craft, your little one will use bubble wrap and paint to create a polka dot pattern on paper Easter eggs. It’s a quick, festive, and colorful way to spend an afternoon!
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13. Giant Water Bead Activity
These large, transparent, and colorful water beads aren’t only biodegradable but also very versatile. They’re squishy and fun to stretch out or break into pieces making them an ideal choice for sensory play as well as to develop cognitive and social skills and practice counting. Fill a sink, bathtub, or even a wading pool with these jumbo delights for a sensory experience like no other.
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14. Make a “Fill it Up” Station
This twist on a classic sensory bin is a perfect way for your child to learn scooping and filling skills—while having lots of messy fun in the process. To set up this activity, fill one bin with something “scoopable” like uncooked rice or beans. Then, place that bin inside an even larger, empty bin, along with a variety of cups, bowls, spoons, and other scoops. Let your toddler practice scooping and pouring in whatever way they like!
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15. Make Your Own Edible Play Dough
This edible play dough can be made from everyday kitchen ingredients, using a simple dough recipe that can be flavored with additional ingredients of your choice. Your toddler can enjoy plenty of squishy sensory play, and you can enjoy not worrying about them putting it in their mouth—as they most surely will!
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16. Hide-and-Seek Matching Game
This hide-and-seek matching game will challenge your little learner to find pairs of objects in a sensory bin. Simply hide pairs of small objects in a sensory bin—then see if your toddler can find them! Talk about a hands-on way to develop problem-solving, counting, and sorting skills.
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17. Rainbow Matching Puzzle
Your two-year-old will adore this colorful rainbow matching game! Matching is a classic game for practicing the concept of parts and whole while developing visual discernment skills. As your little one assembles these colorful, toddler-appropriate puzzles, it’s a great opportunity to help them learn their colors.
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18. Make Handprint Firework Art
This easy handprint craft makes for a creative way to keep track of how your toddler is growing month to month or year to year. Your child will love the sticky feeling of having their hand painted—and seeing the impression it makes as you help them create vibrant fireworks with their handprints!
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19. Bathtub Soap Paint
Letting your toddler play in the tub with this soap-based take on paint is an easy way to contain the mess of their artistic creations. You can make your own “soap paint” with an easy mix of cornstarch, water, soap or shampoo, and food coloring. Give a variety of colors to your little artist in your bathtub and let the artistry commence!
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20. Make Farm Animals from Paper Plates
Do you have a few extra paper plates lying around? Using some colorful paint and plenty of imagination, you can help your toddler turn them into their own adorable farm animals! They can create chicks, cows, lambs, or whatever animal their creative minds can come up with! You can also complete this as a seasonal craft—chicks for spring, turkeys for Thanksgiving, and so on.
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21. Explore Floating and Sinking with Bath Toys
Bathtime is not only relaxing and fun—it’s also a great opportunity for learning about the concepts of floating and sinking. Present your toddler with a variety of toys; being sure to include ones of differing weights. Demonstrate how the toys will float or sink in the water—get your little one involved by challenging them to first guess whether each one will sink or not!
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22. Velcro Dots Tower
This fun activity consists of matching colorful blocks to a plastic tower using velcro dots. You can create a DIY color-matching tower using just an empty food container, paint, velcro dots, and colored blocks. Show your little one how to match the blocks to the colors on the tower and then let them try their hand at it. It’s an engaging way to build color recognition, counting, sorting, and fine motor skills.
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23. Have Fun With Tiny Pom-Poms
Here’s a no-mess way to entertain your toddler and build their fine motor skills: simply guide your child in placing pom-poms on the suction cups of bath toys. Matching the pompoms to the scooped pockets will make for a fun but challenging coordination activity!
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24. Explore the Beauty of Flowers
Flowers aren’t just for decoration! Fresh flowers make for a wonderful opportunity for your toddler to explore cutting, arranging, bouquet making, vase placing, and petal plucking and sorting. This open-ended activity is also a great way to start a discussion with them about different textures and colors—helping their powers of observation and description.
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25. Make Some Colorful Butterfly Art
Your toddler will love making their own butterfly using glitter glue, shiny stars, and some googly eyes. You’ll simply cut a simple butterfly shape out of colored paper and invite your child to decorate it however they’d like. Once they’re done, why not take them outside for some flying fun in the garden?
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26. Wear Sunglasses
This is a cute twist on playing dress-up. You’ll just need some sunglasses sticky notes—either purchase them or cut out your own. Then, find a book or magazine with pictures of humans or animals and have your toddler attach and remove the glasses on each character. Apart from being a fun concentration-based game, this activity will help you develop their hand and eye coordination.
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27. Create a Bubble Wrap Runway
An activity that involves movement and noise—what could be better? Secure strips of bubble wrap to the floor with painter’s tape to start the fun; they can jump and pop as much as they want! Prompt further learning by asking your child to count how many jumps, steps, and hops it takes them to get to the end of the runway, or let them drive toy vehicles over the bubble wrap to pop those bubbles. There’s no end to the different ways to enjoy this setup!
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28. Jungle Vine Gross Motor Activity
Welcome to the jungle! This is a good rainy day gross motor skills activity that can work even if you only have a small amount of space available. Start by setting up some chairs by placing them back to back and opposite from one another; leaving a space down the middle big enough for your toddler to crawl through. Then, create your jungle vines by attaching strips of streamer paper around the chair backs and chair legs for your toddler to navigate. Your kiddos will love pretending they’re rainforest animals crawling through the jungle!
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29. Shaving Cream Cake Decorating
Shaving cream is always a messy win! Set up a cardboard box lined with greaseproof paper, some shaving foam, colorful buttons, and sprinkles—this will be your child’s “cake” to decorate! Guide them in spreading the shaving cream like icing. Your toddler will love the feel of the shaving foam on their little hands; and by adding some tools, such as a plastic butter knife, they’ll be working on their fine motor skills too. They can finish off their cakes by adding buttons, sprinkles, and other decorative elements.
30. Giant Nail Salon
If you have some cardboard and paint, you can help your littles set up their own beauty shop! Flatten out a cardboard box, trace your hand several times around the edges, and then draw on some fingernails. Next, set out different colored paints in an ice cube tray with either small brushes or Q-tips. Your little one can then paint the nails to give their clients manicures. They’ll love the creativity that this game inspires as they exercise their fine motor skills!
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31. Scrap Artwork
This activity is super eco-friendly! Simply grab a few odds and ends from your craft drawer—like bits of paper, card, tissue paper, etc.—and have your toddlers rip or cut them into fun shapes to make a collage. Waste-not-want-not!
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32. Create a Color Wheel
Help your little artist learn their colors! On a large circle of poster paper, mark out five or six segments. Then, have your littles paint each one a different color. Make things more imaginative by providing them with a few different colored objects, such as pom-poms, tissue paper, beads, etc., and allowing them to glue these to the corresponding colored segment!
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33. Make Frozen Paint Popsicles
This idea is super fun! Simply squeeze some toddler-friendly paint into an ice cube or popsicle tray (washable finger paint works well). Stick a popsicle stick in the middle of the paint and freeze it overnight. In the morning, you’ll have these cute frozen “popsicles” to paint with! Your toddler will love watching the colors melt together.
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34. Create a Face Painting Kit
Kids love face paint. Set up a face painting station with face paints, brushes, sponges, and mirrors—and be sure to include a palette so your toddler can mix colors together, which adds to the creative experience. When you have everything you need in one place, let the face-painting fun begin! Offer yourself up as a model for a sweet bonding experience!
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35. Create a Dress-Up Bin
Playing dress-up is always a fun idea! Check out your local thrift stores—or even your closet!—for old dress-up costumes, and accessories. Put together a dress-up bin for your little one and watch the play unfold. Allowing them to experiment with putting different clothing combinations together will see their vocabulary widen and their imaginations soar.
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36. Make a Confetti Collage
This is a great way to use up any extra scraps of paper you have lying around—while also giving your toddler a great sensory experience that will enhance their fine motor skills. Use a hole punch to punch some different colored papers, collect the discarded holes, and use these for your confetti. Then, show your toddler how to glue them onto paper to make a collage—or use paint to add more texture and color.
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37. Animal Yoga Poses
Kids love to move—and they can do it a lot more easily and naturally than adults! Lean into this by giving your toddler some gentle encouragement and structure by introducing yoga practice. There are lots of resources for toddler yoga online, but these animal poses are a perfect start for little bodies!
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38. Make a Music Station
Learning about sound is an important experience for children. Create a DIY outdoor music station for your toddler by securing some pans, trays, and cups in an outdoor space—then, allow them to experiment with sound and get some fresh air and exercise by using different tools to create different rhythms and beats!
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39. Float That Boat
Toddlers plus water equals lots of laughter and mess! Your little one will love this fun boat activity. First, fill a water tray. Then you’ll need some boats—craft some simple ones with colored plastic cups! Now for the fun part—add different amounts of blocks or small toys into each cup and watch how this affects them. This is a great early introduction to STEM principles.
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40. Egg Carton Color Sorting
This color-matching activity is a quiet way to amuse your little one on a rainy day. To prepare, first paint some egg cartons in different colors. Once they’re dry, add them to a tray with pom-poms in the same colors, as well as small scoops and tongs. Next, have your toddler match the pom-poms to the correct colored egg carton. This simple activity will keep their little hands busy and brains engaged and learning!
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41. Make a Watermelon Squish Bag
Looking for a sensory experience for your little one that won’t require a bath or a lot of clean-up? This one fits the bill! For these fun squish bags, simply add 8-10 ounces of clear hair gel and food coloring to your bag, add some watermelon seeds, and secure with clear packing tape to ensure no mess. Then, affix the bag to a window or wall and let your toddler squish and mash it to their heart’s content. A strip of tape down the middle will even turn this into a math game: 1 seed + 2 seeds = 3 seeds. Great fun!
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42. Set Up a Spaghetti Shop
Little kids love nothing more than getting messy—so this spaghetti shop will quickly become one of your kid’s favorite station activities! Set up chopping boards, bowls, and toddler-safe cooking utensils for them to experiment with some cooled, cooked spaghetti. You can even dye some noodles different colors to make things more interesting. Your toddler will love serving you and any stuffed animals who may pop by the shop!
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43. Letter Squirting Activity
Listening skills are important to develop in little ones. Write a strip of letters on a chalkboard and provide your toddler with a squirt gun or a spray bottle filled with water. Then, have them listen to you say a letter before squirting it with their water to erase it. You can also do this with numbers and shapes when working on math skills!
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44. Toilet Roll Towers
Some simple toilet rolls can create lots of opportunities for your toddler to experiment. Have a competition to see who can build the tallest tower. Challenge their threading skills by adding straws for structure and different items to experiment with balance. Get creative and add color with stickers or colored markers. You’ll be amazed at how many different uses your little one can find for these cardboard tubes!
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45. Make Your Own Ring Toss
Practicing throwing is a great way to help develop your toddler’s gross motor skills. Luckily for you, this simple ring toss game is super easy to set up! Get a ball of play dough and place it in a large plastic bowl, and then stand a wooden spoon up in the middle of it. Collect a few rings (bracelets work well) and encourage your child to throw them onto the stick—whoever gets the most on the stick wins!
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46. Make a Race Track
Toddlers love things that move—and they can learn so much through playing with vehicles. Keep them busy by setting up a race track on your floor with painter’s tape, being sure to include roundabouts, junctions, and parking spots. Bring out some of their favorite toy cars and let their travels begin. This will bring hours of wholesome fun into your home and introduce real-world experiences to your child.
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47. Make Sticker Lines
Here’s a fun medium for your little artist—stickers! Start by securing some poster paper to a wall and then draw some different lines; experiment with swirls, zig-zags, waves, and simple outlined shapes. Lastly, give your little one some inexpensive stickers and ask them to cover each line. This activity is a surefire way to keep their little hands busy and their brains ticking.
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48. Q-Tip Writing Practice
Tracing is a great observational skill for your little one to develop. Get them started by writing some letters or numbers onto a sheet of paper. Then, provide your toddler with some different colored poster paints and Q-Tips and have them trace over your makings. As your child gets older and more dexterous, this technique can be used for writing practice as well.
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