Free Special Days Booklet for Toddlers [download]

Use this booklet to plan some fun days for your toddler or play group.  It has fun activities for kids that will be fun boredom busters and activities that you’ll enjoy playing with your child.

Print Free File:
Special Days Booklet (2069 downloads )

Make your Own Mailbox: to introduce what the theme for the day will be.

Make a Chef’s Hat: when you cook.

Pictures: Don’t forget to take pictures of your activities and make a special book.

How to make the Special Day Booklet:

1. Special Day book with pictures of each day and their activities.

2. A Day in the Life. Make a book that illustrates your child’s daily routine. Write captions that can be read a an actual book.

Baby Powder Race

Materials: Baby powder/ or talcum powder and liquid soap
Directions: Fill large baking pan with inch or so of water. Have child sprinkle entire top of water with powder. Next have child squeeze a drop of soap into center of tray and watch powder race to the sides of the pan.

Draw on a Mirror with Dry-Erase markers

Besides designs and scribbles, try drawing silly faces with strange hats, mustaches and beards, etc. Line your faces up with the ones you drew to see how silly you look!

Horseshoe Game

Make 3 one-inch slits on one end of an empty paper towel roll. Tape or glue to a heavy piece of cardboard or other portable flat surface. Decorate, if desired. To play, use 4-5 metal rings used to seal glass jars. Place the rings on the tube and take them off again.
This is similar to- but easier than- Fisher Price’s popular toy.
If you have anchored your ring securely, when your child gets older, he/she can try throwing the rings onto the tube, like the traditional Horseshoe Game.

Index Card Books

Staple index cards together and cut out pictures from magazines. (food, toys, etc.) You may want to let your child pick his/her favorite pictures and help glue them in the book. Pictures of grandma, grandpa, and other relatives work well too.

Let child decorate on open peanut butter sandwich.
Spread peanut butter on a piece of bread. Then let your child decorate it how they want with any of the following items- raisins, banana slices, m&m’s, crackers, celery or carrot slices, grapes (cut in half to prevent choking), chocolate chips, strawberries, or orange segments. Use your imagination- almost anything edible can be used!

Please note: Some studies suggest that very young children may develop allergies to peanut products if introduced to them too soon. If you are worried about this, try substituting peanut butter for cream cheese, tuna fish, or other spread.

Make a Nature Collage

Take a trip outside and collect items to make a collage- leaves, grass, feathers, twigs, etc. Then come in and help your child glue them on a piece of paper. Let dry and hang up.

Make Your Own Bird Feeder

What you’ll need:
Pine cones (1 or more depending on how many you want to make)
Jar of Peanut Butter
Butter Knife, spoon or Popsicle sticks (for spreading peanut butter)
Bird seed
Sewing Thread or long strand of Yarn

Directions: Tie string around pine cone (long enough to hang from a tree branch or wherever you plan to hang it) Spread peanut butter over pine cone. Roll peanut butter covered pine cone in bird seed. Hang somewhere children can watch as birds eat the birdseed from their new feeder. Watch the excitement on your children’s faces when the birds come to eat!

Make your Sidewalk a World of its own!

Materials Needed:Sidewalk chalk, some small toys and an imagination
Directions: Make your driveway or sidewalk into it’s own play area! Use sidewalk chalk to design roads, houses, cows, buildings, etc. with your child. Then get some toys (that you don’t mind getting a bit dirty) to help make your new world a bit more interactive and fun!

Make your Own Mailbox

Materials Needed: Shoebox, paint, crayons, construction paper, envelopes, stickers

Directions: Make a mailbox out of a shoe box by gluing the lid to the box and cutting one of the sides so that it can be pulled down like a mailbox door. Make a handle and a flag out of construction paper.

Trace the letters of the child’s name or use stickers or paint to put name on side of mail box.

A fun way to use your mailbox is to write down an activity (such as a letter, number, color, etc. of the day) on a piece of paper and put in an envelope (using a sticker as a stamp). Your child gets to do whatever activity you placed in the mailbox for the day!

An example of activity of the day: Colors Yellow Day Dress yourself and your child in yellow for the day. Eat yellow foods (bananas, mac ‘n cheese, cheese singles, kix, etc.) Ask your child to point out anything he sees that is yellow. Blow up some yellow balloons. Use only yellow crayons to draw pictures.

Photo Placemats

Poster board…any color
photos
laminating sheets
craft glue

Cut poster board to appropriate sizes, put glue on the back of photos and help the child lay them out on the poster board. I like to “collage” it. Then laminate the board. These make great gifts! The child may also personalize the mat by writing a little note or signing them.

Play with a magnetized foam jungle

Materials Needed:

thin sheets of colored craft foam (foamies) or foam die cut-outs ( both available in craft stores and places like Wal-mart)
glue
Sticky-backed magnetic strips

Directions:

Use die cuts or cut animal shapes out of foam stick on a small magnetic strip to the back I actually glued mine on to keep little fingers from prying it off. Hot glue worked really well- obviously this is for adults to make and kids to play with.

Place on a steel door, such as a refrigerator, washing machine or dryer door, or in my case, the front door. Let your child play with the animals and create their own jungle! I used die cut-outs as it made things a lot easier, but you can cut your own, too. The differences between them is thickness… the die cuts were much thinner and I glued two of them together to give them strength. Die cuts come in (I actually glued mine on to keep little fingers from prying it off. Hot glue worked really well- obviously this is for adults to make and kids to play with.

Place on a steel door, such as a refrigerator, washing machine or dryer door, or in my case, the front door. Let your child play with the animals and create their own jungle! I used die cut-outs as iit made things a lot easier, but you can cut your own, too. The differences between them is thickness… the die cuts were much thinner and I glued two of them together to give them strength. Die cuts come in a variety of shapes- I have done jungle animals and ocean animals.

World’s Best Play dough

1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup salt
1 Tbsp. cream of tartar
1/2 Tbsp. oil
1 cup water
1 small package Cool-aid (for great color and smell)
Mix all ingredients in a sauce pan. Cook over med heat, stirring constantly until you can no longer stir. It will look like a clumpy mess! Turn out on counter top an let cool enough to handle. Knead into a smooth ball. Store in an air tight container.

Other Ideas:

Song Box
Put stickers on fingers for finger puppets
Make musical instruments:
Make a toilet paper barricade for child to go under, over, or through.
Do the Hokey Pokey

Related links: Color Day, Letter Day, Circle Day

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