Are you stuck at home with a toddler? We have plenty of experience hanging with these small people – here are some scheduling and art suggestions for trying to maintain your sanity. Babies and toddlers like routine, their world is so unpredictable so providing them with some sort of routine helps them to know what is coming next. If you’ve got a babe between the ages of 18+ months to 3 years try out our daycare schedule for them.

8:30-9:30 free play
Clean up
9:45am circle time – we’re hosting a FREE circle time on Tuesday/Friday if you want to join – send us an email!
10am – snack
10:30 – outdoor play
11:30 – lunch
12-2:30 nap time
3-4pm outdoor play
4pm snack time
4:30pm art
5-5:30 free play.

Art Ideas

A list of materials needed (all can be purchased at your local dollar store, which is currently still open).

• • • • Paper
      • Markers
      • Watercolour Paint
      • Gluestick
      • Salad Spinner
      • Shaving Cream
      • Food colouring
      • Qtips
      • Paint
      • Bingo Dabber

Letter Art: Toddlers love repetition – we start the week off with a letter and base all our crafts on that letter. In September we started on letter A and have moved through the whole alphabet. Art is a great activity for tots as it helps with fine motor skills and they learn a lot through play. You can print or draw bubble letters and have them glue pieces of paper/tissue paper inside. The scrunch, scrunch stick is a good repetitive action that their little hands can handle. Plus gluing with gluesticks is a fan favorite around here, for us because it doesn’t involve as much mess. A set of watercolour paints (available at the dollar store) is another great way to minimize the mess. Just add a little water to the tray and let them go wild

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Handprints: If you’re going to do handprint painting, have a small bucket of soapy water nearby so you can wash hands quickly. We’ve done a lot of handprint art – sometimes just letting them paint their own hand is enough entertainment for them.

Salad Spinner Art: have a salad spinner at home? This one is super easy and lots of fun, plus it creates some pretty beautiful masterpieces. Cut a piece of paper the size of the salad spinner and place it at the bottom of the spinner. Then squeeze some different colour paints onto the paper circle, put the lid on the spinner and spin away.

Shaving Cream Art: all you need is some shaving cream and some food colouring for this one. Spray the shaving cream into a deep dish and then add drops of food colouring. Have your tot use the end of a spoon to stir it around and make a design then take a piece of cardstock and press it into the shaving cream. Then scrape off the extra shaving cream using a straight edge of a piece of cardboard and voila.

Qtip painting: another great painting activity that does not involve as much mess. There are so many things you could paint, we usually go with a tree and have them add the leaves. This is a good activity to learn about the different seasons.

Counting Art: get yourself a bingo dabber, another great purchase from Dollarama. This is great for art with tots, especially counting art. We usually do an activity where we draw the numbers from 1-10 and have them make the correct number of corresponding dots.