When I gave birth to my son, I was very excited to start teaching him new things and helping him grow and develop. However, I quickly realized that it can be difficult to find activities for 18-24 month olds at home that are both fun and developmentally appropriate.
I’ve put together a list of over 20 activities for 18-24 month olds that are perfect for at-home learning. These activities are geared towards helping your child develop their fine and gross motor skills, language and communication skills, cognitive skills, and social-emotional skills.
Each activity includes a brief description of how it can help your child’s development, as well as step-by-step instructions.
20+ Fun & Developmental Activities for 18-24 Months at Home
1. Fine Motor Skills:
One way to develop your child’s fine motor skills is through art activities that require them to use their small muscles to grip a paintbrush or crayon. Here are a few ideas:
- Finger painting: Put some washable paint on a plate and let your child use their fingers to make marks on a piece of paper.
- Crayon rubbing: Place a piece of wax paper over a textured surface (such as a coin or leaf) and have your child color over it with a crayon. Then, lift the wax paper to see the design that was created.
- Playdough: Provide your child with some playdough and let them explore how to mold it and make different shapes. You can also use cookie cutters to make interesting shapes.
2. Gross Motor Skills:
There are many ways to help your child develop their gross motor skills through everyday activities. Here are a few ideas:
- Go for walks: This is a great way to get some fresh air and explore the world around you. Point out different things that you see along the way and talk about them with your child.
To make the walk even more interesting, you can get the best walking and barking puppy for your little one!
- Dance: Put on some music and dance around the house together. This is a great way to get your child moving and having fun at the same time.
Don’t forget to buy a dance mat for even more interesting dance challenges!
- Play catch: You can use a soft ball or bean bag for this activity. Throw the ball back and forth with your child, gradually increasing the distance as they get better at catching.
3. Language and Communication Skills:
Story time is a great way to work on your child’s language and communication skills. You can check out this amazing boxset of 10 books for kids to get you started!
Here are a few tips:
- Make it interactive: Ask your child questions about the story as you’re reading it. For example, “What do you think will happen next?” or “Where do you think the character is going?”
- Use different voices: Use different voices for the different characters in the story. This will help to keep your child’s attention and make the story more enjoyable.
- Encourage retelling: After you finish reading the story, ask your child to tell you what happened. This will help them to remember the story better and work on their storytelling skills.
4. Cognitive Skills:
There are many ways to help your child develop their cognitive skills through simple everyday activities. Here are a few ideas:
– Sorting: Sort items by color, shape, or size. For example, you can sort these animal push and pop up toy for kids.
– Matching: Find items that match each other in some way. For example, you can match toy colors and shapes either in similar colors or matching shapes.
– Memory games: Play simple memory games with your child to help them learn the alphabet, numbers, color recognition, and more!
5. Social-Emotional Skills:
There are many activities for 18-24 months at home to help your child develop their social-emotional skills. Here are a few ideas:
- Playing pretend: Play simple pretend games with your child. For example, you can pretend to be a customer at a store and have them be the cashier.
Also, you can get a laugh and learn toddler toy vacuum push toy with light and music to boost your play pretend activities.
- Emotion cards: Look at different emotion cards together and talk about how the people in the pictures are feeling. This is a great way to help your child understand and express their own emotions.
- Dramatic play: Put on a simple puppet show or play with dolls This is a great way to encourage your child to use their imagination and express themselves.
These are just a few ideas for activities for 18-24 months at home. By incorporating these activities into your daily routine, you can help your child to develop the skills they need to be successful in school and in life.
READ ALSO: Games to Play with 2 Year Olds: How to Entertain a 2 Year Old Indoors
Games for 18-24 Months at Home
This is a great game for helping your child develop their fine motor skills. For this game, you’ll stack some beautiful, rainbow-colored building blocks. The object of the game is to stack the blocks as high as possible without them toppling over.
This is a classic memory game that’s perfect for young children. The object of the game is to match up pairs of cards. This helps your child to develop their memory and concentration skills.
This is a great game for helping your child develop their social-emotional skills. The object of the game is to guess which one of your child’s friends is pictured on the card. This helps your child to understand and express their own emotions.
This is among the most interesting activities for 18-24 months at home. Your child will pull this toy pup, feed it, take it for walks, and much more. This helps your child to develop their gross motor skills.
And because the toy dog barks, is very colorful, and has numbers on it and songs, your child will develop their language and communication skills as well.
This is a great game for helping your child develop their fine motor skills. The object of the game is to pop up all of the Peter Rabbits as fast as possible. This helps your child to develop their hand-eye coordination.
This is a great game for helping your child develop their fine motor skills. The object of the game is to pop up the puppets using the included stick. This also helps to develop your child’s hand-eye coordination.
More Exciting Activities for 18-24 Months at Home
This is a great game for helping your child develop their gross motor skills. During play, your child will have to drop the balls into the matching colored holes. This helps to develop your child’s coordination and balance.
This is a great game for helping your child develop their social-emotional skills. The aim of the game is to find the hidden baby in each room of the house. This helps your child to understand and express their own emotions.
This is a classic game that’s perfect for young children. To play, your child will put the X’s and O’s in the correct spaces. This helps your child to develop their memory and concentration skills.
This is a classic card game that’s perfect for young children. The object of the game is to avoid being the old maid. This helps your child to develop their social-emotional skills.
This is a classic board game that’s perfect for young children. The object of the game is to get to the finish line first. This helps your child to develop their gross motor skills.
These are just a few ideas for activities for 18-24 months at home. By incorporating these activities into your daily routine, you can help your child to develop the skills they need to be successful in school and in life.