Activities for 2 – 5’s

Are you looking for activities to do with your young children? Are you involved in a program that works with 2 – 5 year olds?

Currently I help run a playgroup at my local school and I also Coordinate the MOPS Kids part of our MOPS group.

There are so many activities that you can do with 2 – 5’s. Here a just a few easy activities from my experience as an Early Childhood teacher, a Mum and an volunteer working with young children.

Bubbles

A fabulous activity to occupy toddlers. Blow the bubble and let them chase them and watch them. Of course they’ll want to have a go at blowing as well. You can get large and small bubble blowers. You can buy bubble mixture or make you own with some water, washing up liquid and some glycerine or cooking oil

Boxes

The box is often the best toy! Boxes of all shapes & sizes are fun to play with. You can sit in a box and it’s a plane, a car or a boat. Or hide in a bigger box and it’s a fort or cubby. Box play is fun for older children as well.

Box Construction

Used cereal boxes, tissues boxes, egg cartoons etc are great for making all sorts of things. They can be stuck together with glue, masking tape or glue on large strips of paper to join a couple of boxes together. Yesterday I read about the idea of using blutac as an alternative to glue as it’s less messy for places like in a church.

Collage

Collages can be made from scraps including coloured bits of paper, cut up straws, paddle pop sticks, feathers, bubble wrap, pieces of material or felt. The list is endless.

Playdough

I’ve found that a cooked playdough recipes last longer and the recipe on the side of the Cream of Tartar box is as good as any. Playdough can also be made in a thermo machine or a microwave.

We’ve use chocolate playdough at church to go with the story of Jesus healing the blind man.

You can also make gluten free playdough if you have young children that are coeliac or intolerant to gluten and likely to eat the playdough.

Mercury Dough or Oobleck

This is a mixture of corn flour and water, with a few drops of food colouring. It feels hard to touch but is runny when you pick it up. It’s a good, easy fun alternative to playdough, for a different experience. If you use cornflour that is corn based (not containing wheat), it’s also gluten free.

Painting

As with all creative activities with young children it’s more about the process (the act of doing the thing) than about the finished product. For very young children use large brushes and large pieces of paper, either at an easel or on a low table.

Cotton Bud Painting

This is a good activity to work on fine motor skills. Instead of using paint brushes, try using cotton buds in small containers of paint.

Handprints or Footprints

This can be great for gifts or cards to give to others. The easiest way to get a handprint of a young child is to hold the child’s wrist and paint the hand before asking them to spread their fingers and helping them to push their hand onto paper or another surface. This works well on wide photo frames that can then be given as a gift with a photo of the child in the frame.

Finger Painting

Although messy, tactile children love this.

Painting with water

An alternative to using paint on paper. Put some water in a kids sand bucket with a wide paint brush and let them “paint” any surfaces they like outside.

Chalk Drawing

Drawing on a blackboard easel with normal size chalk or using large pieces of chalk and drawing on cement are both good options.

Wet Chalk Drawing

Another alternative is to soak some chalk in water for a little while and then use the wet chalk to draw on black paper or card.

Water Trough

A trough or large container filled with water can provide lots of fun. Kids can use buckets, funnels, and other containers to play with the water.

Rice or Bird Seed

If it’s too cold, water is scarce or you don’t want your children getting wet you can use uncooked rice or birdseed as an alternative.

These are just a few ideas. These are mostly the ideas that I’ve come back to over and over again. There are plenty more. What activities have you found that are fun & engaging for under 5’s?