Two-year-olds can be hard to occupy. Their attention spans are still pretty short, and they’re still too young for real arts and crafts projects. While I enjoy doing messy painting projects with Elise, sometimes I need an activity that requires a less involvement on my part (and less mess too).
I thought I’d share some of the creative activities that we’ve been doing lately. None of them are particularly original, but maybe someone else might benefit from an activity below. You’ll notice most of these require Elise to be buckled in her high chair, which is a plus when you have a busy body like my daughter.
Sometimes these activities work for five minutes, other times upwards of 45 minutes. Just depends on the day.
Stringing large beads on pipe cleaners. The pipe cleaner stays stiff, so it’s easy to put through the bead. Obviously, if your kid is still into sticking things in their mouth, you would have to wait on this one. Or use Cheerios.
Painting with water on a chalkboard. Paint is great, but requires close supervision. Painting with water seems to hold her attention just as much and is a lot less messy. I put a tiny bit of water into a jar lid and give her a cheapie paintbrush, and she loves it. Sometimes I also give her bits of chalk and she colors and paints over it. Or she just puts the chalk in the water to soak.
Paint with water books. Yes they still make them! I used to love these when I was little. Although, now they cost like $3.50, which seems kind of expensive for what they are, but she’s totally into painting and Mickey.
Playing with Play Doh. Elise seems to be more interested in watching me play with Play Doh than playing with it herself. But she used to totally reject touching anything squishy, and I’m trying to get her over that with more exposure.
We also do a lot of coloring with crayons and chalk, drawing and sticking stickers onto paper. But when all of that gets boring, our old standby the simple cardboard box never fails.
See Creative and crafty activities for two-year-olds Part II >>
A great list! And you’re so right–a cardboard box never seems to fail. My family has classic photos of my then 2 year old nephew on Christmas Eve thrilled with the giant box one of his toys came in. Behind him sits a mountain of gifts with his name on them. He played with the box all night until it broke. 🙂
My daughter loves non-toys so much more than real toys. Yesterday, she was playing with a milk bottle cap for a loooonnnng time. And the cardboard box never fails.