5 Awesome Activities for Early Tot School

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, which means we may receive a commission if you click a link and purchase something. Please check out our disclosure policy for more details.

5 Awesome Early Tot School Activities to help children ages 6-18 months learn and play. Includes 3 FREE Printables!!

6-18 months is a magical age. It’s the time when your baby finally begins to express itself and let his or her personality shine. That’s not to say it’s easy. In fact, I think it can be one of the most difficult ages as they become old enough to get into everything but too young to really understand the rules. This is a fantastic age for introducing some simple early tot school activities. Below I will show you a few basic early tot school activities that you can introduce to your 6-18 month old. All of these can be easily modified to suit your child and most can be made using things you already have around the house. How easy is that?!

1. Fine Motor Skills

Developing fine motor skills is so important at a young age. These skills will form the building blocks of future writing skills. The hardest part of creating fine motor activities for this age group is their tendency to put EVERYTHING in their mouths. So many small items are a choking hazard that its easy to spend all your time keeping small things away from your baby instead of giving them opportunities to handle these items.

One of my favorite early tot school fine motor activity is threading pipe cleaners through holes. I like to use an inverted colander and show baby how to stick the ends of the pipe cleaners through the holes. If you have a little more time and are feeling crafty you could carefully poke holes in the lid of a Pringles can, creating an activity with built-in storage! As your child gets older experiment with stringing pasta or large beads on the pipe cleaners – just remember to always watch them with any small or sharp objects.

5 Awesome Early Tot School Activities to help children ages 6-18 months learn and play. Includes 3 FREE Printables!!

2. Sensory Play

It feels like sensory play is such a buzzword these days – what does it even mean? It really is just a fancy way of explaining that kids need opportunities to get their hands dirty and interact with lots of different textures. I have found that rice and beans make excellent sensory bin foundations. Dry rice is easy to color to increase the visual appeal, while beans are a bit easier to clean up.

It’s best to begin with the foundation material alone in the beginning. Let your child explore the texture and run their hands through it. Then introduce a spoon or scoop. From there continue to add bowls and pitchers for pouring, or place objects within the material to be ‘excavated’. For easy clean up, sensory play is ideal for a plastic shower curtain or table cloth.

Click here to see my easy recipe for colored rice!

Colored rice is easy to make and can be used in endless applications for sensory play!

3. Cotton Ball Painting

Art projects for babies – are you crazy? Aren’t they messy enough already? Don’t worry, I’ve found a few activities that both babies and moms can love. Of course, a smock never hurts.  I love to pour a little washable paint like this one; and use clothespins and cotton balls to make simple paint brushes. Little ones love dabbing and it keeps them from getting too messy. Visit my Digital Resource Library to download and print 3 free pages that are perfect for this project! Don’t have the password?? Easy! Just sign up below and it will be emailed to you immediately.

Easy Art Project for Early Tot School - use cotton balls and clothes pins to make simple paint brushes for your budding Monet!

4. Craft Paper Mosaic

This is such a fun craft that works well for little ones and older siblings alike. All that you need is some construction paper, Elmer’s Glue the printable pages available in my Digital Resource Library. Ripping paper is great fun, so let your child tear the construction paper into small pieces. Then make a 50/50 mix of glue and water in a small dish. Have your child dip each piece of paper in the glue and then place on the printed page.

Easy Early Tot School Gluing Craft with FREE Printables!

5. Montessori Treasure Baskets

One of my favorite early tot school activities was creating treasure baskets for my little ones. It’s fun to pick a theme and then just walk through your house looking for every day objects that fit it. Shown below is a ‘Red Themed’ treasure basket that I made for Nugget. I even used a red basket and then displayed it on a red blanket. Could this thing get any more red?? Inside is a drink koozie, a flashlight, legos, a glove, large buttons from a threading game and a foam acorn. This stuff is like catnip to babies and it offers so many learning opportunities! Besides the obvious lesson in color, you expose them to lots of new vocabulary words as you introduce each item. Believe me, once you introduce a treasure basket your child will return to it again and again!

Some of my favorite themes for treasure baskets are: colors, shapes, textures and seasons.

Red Sensory Bin for Early Tot School - make learning colors easy and immersive with this fun sensory bin. Learn more at www.nuggetandgoose.com

Have you tried any of these activities with your early tot schooler? I’d love to hear how it went and if you would like more printables like these. Comment below with your input (or to just say ‘hi’)!

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save