Jack Dorsey
Home Activities 18 Month Old – I’m so glad you’re here! I hope you find this space inspiring, helpful, and fun! Stay tuned and remember to subscribe to our emails and follow our social media pages for our latest game-based educational activities.
If you liked the activities in this post and want to see more like them, go to the next post: 30+ Activities for 1-2 Year Olds
Home Activities 18 Month Old
This is a post I’ve been wanting to do for a while (obviously – since Kade is now two-faced*), but never got around to it. I’ve had a lot of people reach out to me lately saying things like, “I want to do activities during the month of __ but I don’t know where to start!” Or just ask for advice/guidance/ideas on activities and crafts for children under 1 year. I’ve tagged this post more for 12-18 month olds, but lots of activities can be done once your baby can sit unsupported and hold things.
The Best Routine For Your 18 Month Old Toddler
I’ve also tagged this post “Daily Rotation of Activities”. I do this because this is how I set up all of these activities during the week when we actually do them and take pictures of them. Kyle is on a business trip this week and I want to be prepared for fun, new activities, and research materials so I don’t lose my mind over the weekend and Cady has fun and doesn’t get too bored playing with old kids’ toys. Yes, this took a lot of preparation last weekend, but honestly, it made our week go by so much more fun for both of us.
When Cuddy was this age, I tried to change his toys once a week in our main play area. This helped keep things fresh and interesting. Even if they are toys he has seen before, if he doesn’t see them often, they will be more interesting and will keep his attention and focus longer. In this post, I will go through each day of the week and briefly explain each developmentally appropriate activity or game I assigned him to explore that day. I will also link any material used wherever and whenever I can refer to it. I hope some of these ideas are helpful!
Disclaimer: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links, which means I will earn a small profit if you make a purchase through this link. Some of the profits earned through these links will be used as resources to provide activity ideas and resources on my blog to readers and subscribers. All opinions remain my own and I only link to products I truly recommend.
I helped Cuddy sit at our kitchen table and placed his toys. I placed it in a tub with magnetic letters and let him explore. I showed him how to put different letters in doh while we talked about letter colors and looking for letters to spell his name. Play doh is an activity I monitor 100% closely (even when he was 2 – but especially when he was little) because he will try to sneak in every now and then. They’re non-toxic so I can always be safe, but I still don’t want to add them to his diet. 😉 This activity is great for sensory exploration and fine motor skills and introduces capital letters and colors.
Indoor Toddler Activities For 12 18 Months
I used one of our favorite First Words books that has lots of real-life pictures and pasted just a few on each page with post-it notes. I had to use sticky notes of different sizes depending on the size of the photo, but this was so much fun and really easy to make! Cady loves flipping pages and tearing out notes to discover what’s hidden underneath. This activity develops fine motor skills (turning pages, taking notes) and helps build vocabulary.
We have three cute interactive nursery rhymes with puppets perfect for this age group. There are tons of them on Amazon! We read/sing it together and Cuddy loves to touch the doll while I pull it out and read to him. These books help build vocabulary, foster a love of reading/literacy, and are great for bonding with your child. 😉
A great developmental toy for this age group. Technically, our toys are bath toys because they have holes in the bottom. They are useful in various sensory bins, and we like to use them in groundwater as well. This set of cups was one of Cuddy’s favorite toys to play with even before he was one year old. And as he grew, they grew with him because he could actually build towers with them and nest them from the largest to the smallest. This toy helps promote problem solving and practice early childhood development skills such as stacking, building and nesting.
We still take this activity with us in the car on long trips! We switched him from straws to using a pipe cleaner (Target carries the Kid Made Modern brand of thick/greasy pipe cleaners, which is especially fun). I used an empty ice-flavored champagne bottle because it’s a little taller and thinner, but a regular empty water bottle will work too!
Toddler Development At 15 18 Months
I used colored paper to cut out small circles and adhered them to the bottom of a 6-cup muffin tin. I put the same colored plastic balls that we had from the ball into a small bucket with a plastic ice cream scoop. This activity is great for clear color sorting, but also helps practice eye-hand coordination when picking up/dropping into cans.
6 cup muffin box | colored paper | [Similar] Plastic Ice Cream Scoop | Ball game [comes with plastic balls, my colors] | Plastic ball
Oh how I wish I could relate this to you! This was a great find I scored from the dollar section at Target last season and we really loved it. Great for organizing and categorizing all the different “things going on”. I haven’t seen this section specifically, but I know that the dollar section at Target usually has super cute felting activities in the form of imaginative play or felt mat sorting activities, so always check there when you go (how could anyone not browse this section all Time anyway? Is this possible?)
Cady is still playing with these blocks at 2 years old! Another great developmental toy that will grow with your child. When he was young, these toys were perfect for biting; And hitting and throwing. As time passed, they enjoyed watching their mother and father build and tear down towers. As he gets older, he can now stack and roll them.
Best Toys For 18 Month Old Toddlers Of 2023
This activity took some time to prepare, but it was a fun and different/unique activity for us! I took a bunch of alphabet cards and put them all in separate envelopes. I put all the envelopes in a little box and let Kade “open all the mail” while we looked and talked about each picture on the card. He certainly didn’t open all the envelopes in one sitting because attention spans at that age are very, very short, but he would come back to them all day long. This is a great fine motor activity and helps build vocabulary.
I tried to come up with some fun, new and different types of books for each round of activities to change things up from his usual basket of paper books. Giving young children different sizes, shapes and textures to explore in book form is a great way to spark their interest and interest in books/literacy. Kade still absolutely loves the Mama Goose books and especially loves the little “bag” they come in. And now he also knows a lot of rhymes about this little goose thanks to me reading it. The cloth book we received was actually a very sweet and thoughtful gift for Cady from my dear friend when he was first born. She is very talented and sewed herself. It’s special to us and was one of Cady’s favorite books as a kid!
Mother Goose Chalkboard Book | [Similar, Recommended] Interactive Cloth Books | Sewing fabric “Who said wow”.
Stamps are a great art project that isn’t too messy, but is still fun for younger kids. Obviously I have to design how to use the seal
Learning Activities For 18 Month Old
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