Social-Emotional Development
Who’s In My Family? Book
Create a photo album, Binder Book to show your toddler who is their family. You can include pages for immediate and extended, grandparents, siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, and friends who are like family. The possibilities are endless! Have your toddler colour a title page or the background, glue on the pictures or add stickers.
Add it to your book collection and enjoy together many times over!
Skills to Practice: Language – New Vocabulary, Math – Sorting and Classifying
Extended Learning: Create a family tree
Set up a play date with your toddler and one of their family members to create bonding time.
Cognitive Development
Community Helpers Puzzle
What is Needed: Free printable Community Helpers Puzzle, Scissors
Work with your toddler to match the top and bottom half of each community helper. Discuss what they do to help the community, how they keep us safe, what they wear, and how they get around town.
Skills to Practice: Community Awareness and Understanding, Math – Relational understanding
Extended Learning: Pretend or Dress up Play. Children learn best by doing. Act out what community helpers do. Pretend to be doctors, farmers, firefighters! This play will teach your toddler about empathy and how to want to help others.
Language Development
Mail a Letter
Take the time to write a letter and draw a picture for someone special; a grandparent, a far away friend, the mailman! Have the toddler ‘write’ the address and then add a label with the correct spelling.
Go to the store for a stamp. (If possible.) Have your toddler pay for and place the stamp on the envelope. Walk to the mailbox and enjoy a conversation about how it gets from one place to the next.
Skills to Practice: Fine Motor – Tool Use, Literacy – Early writing concepts
Extended Learning: Collect your mail with your toddler. Sort flyers from pieces of mail. Go through the flyers and point out some items of interest. Make a grocery list.
Physical Literacy
Community Adventure
Go for a family walk around the neighbourhood. This is a perfect opportunity to practice street safety and learn more about their community.
Learn street safety – (Stop at driveways and corners/ walk on the sidewalk, not people’s grass/ treat the sidewalk like a road, stick to one side/ Don’t touch people’s pets without asking…)
Point out street signs. Notice their shapes
Point our community resources, community helpers, neighbour’s homes, and other areas of interest (ex. Library, a large clock, lawn ornaments.)
Notice nature – the breeze on your faces, the flowers in gardens, puddles on the ground
Skills to Practice: Regulating Attention, Safety skills, Social mannerism
Extended Learning: Play “I Spy” with things you notice in your neighbourhood
Creative Activity
Painting with Cars
What is Needed: Mini Cars, Paint, Paper
Dip the car wheels in the paint and let the adventures begin. Your toddler will enjoy wheeling the car around and seeing the colours fly across the page and mix together making new colours.
Skills to Practice: Sensory and Imaginative Play, Cognitive – Concentration, Attention to Detail
Extended Learning: Add texture to the paint (sand, grains, seeds, oats.) Does the painting experience feel different? Does it make a bumpy road?
Additional Resources:
https://www.cosmickids.com/category/watch/?duration=short&changed=duration – Website for kids yoga, and mindfulness. Videos range from 10 minutes to over 15 minutes.
https://www.louvre.fr/en/visites-en-ligne – Visit the museum’s exhibition rooms and galleries, contemplate the façades of the Louvre…Come along on a virtual tour and enjoy the view