What do you do with your 2 year old?

[whatanenormousturkey]

Have done a search but can't find similar thread so.....

What do you do with your 2 year old to amuse them (and you if poss?)? Am looking for a bit of inspiration for the Xmas hols when dd will be at home for 2 weeks solid - and I'm used to her being at cm 3 days a week and with Granny on 1 day a week.....and I'd like to not rely on the TV for the majority of the time!

We: go to the park, go for walks, go shopping (not always fun!), do a bit of drawing, paint (if I'm feeling brave), go swimming, go to toddler groups (which won't be open over Xmas), visit little mates occasionally.....

Other ideas?

sticking (but you control the glue lol) play-doh, make ballon heads .......keep it seasonal with maybee a santa or an angel or a rudolph.

baking some biscuits and decoring them, the icing pens are great for this.

hth

Make christmas cards / decs - pritt stick, gummed shapes from ELC? Paperchains maybe?

Mine loved icing biscuits - just buy digestives mix icing sugar wih water, and buy some sprinkles. They eat most of it befor eit gets on the biscuit, but it's quite nice!

Feed ducks? Is 2 too little for bead threading? Can't remember now...

In the past couple of week's DD (2.5yo) and me have made some Christmas stuff.

Made a snowman - I cut out a couple of circles in card, some little black circles and an orange triangle. Let DD loose with glue and she stuck 2 circles together to make snowman shape, and then stuck cotton wool all over it. Then stck on eyes, nose and buttons. We made a top hat too from black card.

Made snowflakes, by folding and tearing paper into design. Then decorated with paint and glitter.

Made a Christmas tree from green card - used glitter, tinsel, stickers to decorate.

For Christmas pressies for grandparents - did some glass staining of little tealight candle holders.

Decorate little cardboard boxes to make chocolate booxes for pressies to aunt/uncles.

At nursery DD has mde an agel for the tree, and a snowman (with yogurt pots, etc.)

For messy stuff I strip her down to underwear and have a bath ready!

My DS1 loves playing with "peas" - dried peas and beans, on a tray on the kitchen floor, a few plastic cups, spoons and containers and he's happy (and so am I ). He also loves "helping" me bake cakes and sometimes we do the cake mix things, printing off printable puppets from CBeebies website, colouring them on and making up stories, playing trains with cushions, doing the Three Bears with teddies, one dolly and a few bowls.... can't think of anything else off hand but maybe you have a few ideas! Good luck

Well she will have new toys to play with!

My DS 22mths loves the Aquarium, the Zoo, the car wash, anything his dad takes him to, but mostly we got to the park, Mothers' group once a week. I don't do arty stuff at home yet - he can wreck his daycare mum's house for now. We read, watch Thomas etc. He loves daycare which he goes to 2 days a week, one day of which includes toddler play group. In the NY he starts swimming lessons and am thinking about music as well.

Dancing, singing, building with lego. Watching building sites. Reading (lots). Going on public transit for fun.

Water play is great if you don't mind a bit of mess; sit them in the kitchen with bowl of water and lots of cups, sieves, funnels etc. Keep an eye on them of course!
Also 2 is old enough for simple games and jigsaws, always popular in our house.
Soft stuff, making cakes, craft things - how about one crafty thing a day? (hula's ideas are great).
Fave toys for my ds2 who is 20 mo are the marble run and the playmobil, but that's cause he's got 2 older siblings!

I'm guilty of letting dd (3 in a couple of weeks) watch WAY too much TV, but I recently got some DVDs with nursery rhymes and songs so at least she dances along to them in the living room... and keeps telling me to do so too... great workout

mine (2.1) loves puzzles, books and good old-fashioned playing, eg we act out little stories with her dolls house people, play garages, cars - this gets a bit wearing as she NEVER wants to stop. Walks very popular too, going to the supermarket,especially now dd1 is at school full time so we can wander round a bit more slowly.

Simple crafts as others have said. Although I think they tend to be better at these if they have an older db or ds to copy.

We are having an extension built at the moment and her fave thing is to ask the builders if they want tea and then get her tea set all ready for them

Do you have any playfood, that is very popular at this age.

ooh, chocolate crispy cake making - and scones - they love that it's just like playdough. We used to make scones atthe crack of dawn when she was up and dh was still in bed.. aah..

My ds is 2.8 and he loves doing his 'work' on my lap top. I cahnge the font to a huge size amd make it a bright colour and he merrily types away fr ages!

what a brill idea for the laptop! my dd loves tippytappy-ing as she calls it

rustly walks (probably a bit late now) and splashy walks. At about 4:30 you can go out for a Xmas lights walk too. And if there is a building site or railway bridge nearby you could have your whole day sorted. Such simple things thrill my (nearly) 2 year old.

Do you have a button box? DS has about 10 buttons at a time (cos he eventually loses them all) and he plays with them every day. If you don't, why not go to a car boot sale and buy some old buttons or something similar. Can't see the attraction myself, but ds loves them. I'm saving plastic bottle tops for him too, as I've a feeling they'll be a favourite!

Sticker books are great too (don't think anyone has mentioned them) - M&S sell them for just £2.50 and my dd loves these (she's now 2.5). She's also mad about jigsaws and as others have suggested we've done some baking where she can stir up ingredients or have a go at pressing out biscuits.

(Lakeland Plastics do a wonderful box of 101 cookie cutters - great for cooking, but there are lots and lots of ideas for other things to use them for on the box too, as well as recipe for roll out cookies and make your own playdough).

woolies have great sticker books and stickers from £1 and the sticker books are reusable (so can stick in the stickers and take them out, back in etc etc)

Ooh, I'm looking forward to the nursery-free weeks - NOT.

Here are some things I'll do with dd (2.5) -

"making tea" - couple of tea bags, some sugar, a tiny bit of watered milk and her tea set on a tray on the kitchen floor. When she's bored with that we do "washing up" - bowl of soapy water, sponge, her tea set, a teatowel. Meanwhile I can get on with some cooking or something. When she's bored with that, we mop the kitchen floor .

She'll play longer by herself with her toys if there is a nursery rhyme tape playing.

Make a tent with chairs and a sheet/duvet cover.

We go on the park'n'ride bus to the shopping centre, where we play on the escalators and then go and have a cup of tea (me) and a juice (dd) and then catch the bus back again.

Watching trains at the station is good too.

We're going to go and buy the christmas tree and decorate it one morning.

Our local garden centre will have some kind of christmas display (and she likes looking at all the trees and decorations for sale anyway). And they sell fish so we go to look at the aquariums too.

We're going to use some of the good crafty ideas on MN to make cards for the grandparents. And then I expect we'll walk to the postbox to post them... (on that theme, I save the envelopes from the cards I receive; dd likes to "post" them in a shoebox, or deliver them to her teddies).

Sorting out cupboards is a good one - got any that are full of stuff you haven't looked at for years that could do with a sort out? I've been sorting out stuff for the new baby, and dd is completely amused by rummaging through the bags and finds all sorts of ways to play with what she finds.

And any activity is a lot more fun for us both if I can get a friend with a similar aged child to come too..

fruitful - I salute your ingenuity - you get top mum award of the day! Love the making tea set up!