Activities for Two Year Olds: Day One

Am I the only mom who is going INSANE this winter? It seems like the days fly by with rare moments of boredom when the weather is nice, but days like today that are cold, wet, and awful make me want to run away and never come back. As I'm sure other good moms do during the unbearable days, I park my kids in front of the TV for as long as they will watch it, and when they decide that's enough, I try to distract them with food, and when that doesn't work we turn to the toys and books we've played with a gazillion times. And any mom reading this knows how well that works.

Like a lot of moms, I've pinned and re-pinned those dumb toddler activity pins. You know, the blogs of moms who homeschool for a living and think they have invented electricity because they came up with the idea of letting their two year old finger paint by pushing paint around in a ziplock? (Yes, I totally tried this, and the girls started throwing fits after 20 seconds because they wanted the paint "OUT! Fail.) And make you feel incredibly guilty because the extent of your mom creativity ended at letting your kid dump out your tupperware drawer? No? That's just me?

Well desperate times call for desperate measures. After combing through many of these silly pins, and realizing I don't want my kids to cover my entire kitchen in dry rice and jello, here are a few *tolerable* and promising activities I've discovered and hope to try soon. And since my days are filled to the brim with taking care of these little ones, I'll post one a day for the next ___ (?) days. Don't you love how reliable I am?

For the past 5-6 months, I've been doing my best to teach the girls their letters. Some days they have fun and love telling me which letters are which. Other days they yell "Noooo Mommy!" when I point to letters and ask them what they are. You would think I'm some alphabet drill sargeant the way they say it. Their current favorite way to practice their alphabet is with those foam letters we play with in the bath. However, I recently grabbed a pack of these bingo dobber paint pens at Hobby Lobby (which were a huge hit and the girls love painting with), and then stumbled upon these downloadable alphabet dotter prints. Love of bingo dobber painting meets learning letters? I hope so.

Entire downloadable alphabet found HERE.

P.S. I once read on another blog that the best way to teach letters is to focus on one per week. That has worked well for us so far. The girls know approximately 15 letters now (on a good day). Clearly I have weeks that I'm way more ambitious than others. ;)

Stay tuned...

xoxo