Here we are again with another COVID surge which means spending a lot of time at home again. It’s miserably hot down here, so spending tons of time outside just isn’t an option right now. We’re still working full time, so we are back to relying on some of our tried & true toys that keep the boys entertained for long periods of time. We figured some of you might be in the same situation and we wanted to share what works for us with y’all!
Hunter is 4 & Gage will turn 3 in September. There are many toys that they can share now, but they also have different interests. For most of quarantine, Gage was age 18 months to 2.5 yr. He’s also our child who can’t sit still for very long. So I promise, if these toys work for Gage, they’ll most likely work for your kiddo.
It was easy in the long, thick days of the pandemic to rely on television and tablets. And that was totally okay while we were trying to get through a very difficult time. But it didn’t take us long to realize that, not only was this not in line with our parenting style, but the boys would have bad attitudes or throw more tantrums once the technology was turned off. So we went back to our trusty ole’ technology-free toys & honestly, things are just so much better!
Here are our favorites for the 2 & under crowd 🙂
(For our list of items for kids 3 and up, check out this post)
Shape sorter/stacker
A pretty simple toy but the possibilities are endless. Kids are learning shape names & how many sides that shape has as well as working on motor skills to stack them back. Even better, you can practice colors, making patterns, and counting. If you really want to kick it up a notch, you can start doing all of these simple things in a different language. We’ve chosen Spanish in our house, so the boys know their colors, numbers and shapes in Spanish from this activity.
ABC Alligators
This is another favorite & really similar to the toy mentioned above. The primary activity is to match the uppercase letter to the lower case letter. But again, they’re practicing dexterity by putting the head and tail together and you can practice colors, patterns, counting and sorting, too.
Drawing Board
The boys both got one of these from my brother last Christmas and they really enjoy drawing and writing on them. Then, they simply erase & start again. I personally love that it’s self-contained and mess free 🙂
Puzzles
Both the boys like puzzles, but Gage really loves them! These were some of the first puzzles we got for them. It’s enough of a challenge at this age to keep them engaged but not hard enough that they need you to help them.
Train Tracks
This was another recent Christmas gift. It was actually something that Hunter asked for, but Gage has really taken a liking to it. It’s funny because he doesn’t really push the train on them, he just builds some crazy awesome track, takes it down & does it again. It’s a great STEM activity & we’re excited to be expanding his collection from about 60 pieces to 160 once his birthday gets here.
Books
Our boys really like to read. Quite frankly, we have too many books; but I will never complain about their love of reading. Board books with lots of big pictures work best at this age so that you don’t have to stress about them ripping pages.
Shapes Puzzle
Gage refers to this one as the ‘caterpillar puzzle’ and it took us dayssss to figure out which puzzle he was referring to. LOL We’ve had this for awhile now & have no idea why he all of a sudden started calling it this just recently. BUT it does have a caterpillar picture in it which he likes to build, so there ya go! This is another great STEM activity with tons of cards in there. Gage can build for hours!! I do make sure he sits at the table to do this one so that we don’t take a chance on losing a piece.
Big lego bricks
These are so fun for them to knock around – ‘Crash-boom’ is pretty popular in our house. Having them build things is always a great open-ended activity but this provides another opportunity to sort, count and practice colors.
Crayons & Paper
And when all else fails, roll out a big piece of paper on the floor … you know the kind of rolls you get to put on an art easel – yep, those! Just roll them out on the kitchen floor and it provides a new experience when it comes to coloring.
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