Any Games for my soon to be 2 year old?

Question

Any ideas for fun games or activities i can play with my son for his age group? he is 22 mnths, and were are getting bored with the usual! thanks for suggestions

thank you all so much! great suggestions!

Answer 1

There are online games at www.sesamestreet.org and www.fisher-price.com. Fisher Price makes a great game called Matching Middles. It's the kind of game that grows with the child. It's a jar filled with Oreo cookies. When you take the cookies apart there are shapes in the middle and they have to match them back up. As they get older you can use it as a memory game. Try doing flashcards. That will build his vocabulary. As he gets older you can have him make up short stories for each card. Very educational. Ker-plunk... It's a long tube and you put these pick-up-stick-looking-things in it and then marbles on top. Pull the sticks out until the marbles fall. It's an adults game, but it teaches cause and effect. Plus, it's sure to make him giggle. The goodnight moon game is specifically made for toddlers. You can get it online at www.amazon.com. Try building a fort out of chairs and blankets and pretend he's king. Have him sing songs about kings and read him books about kings. This is very early make believe and is very good for developing their imagination. Pat-a-cake like games are very good for this age group. He likely won't be able to remember the pattern so keep it simple like just slapping the floor or clapping your hands. He'll love trying to do what you're doing and it will teach him rhythm. Plus, he'll love the silly rhymes you're saying. Try putting a bunch of objects in a bag and letting him feel them and guess what they are. Like have him watch you put a tennis ball and a rock into the bag and then have him guess which one he's touching. Very good for cognitive skills. As he gets older, add more objects to the bag. He's probably almost old enough to learn how to play hide and seek. Hide in very obvious places like behind a stuffed animal or on top of the couch. He'll giggle when he "finds" you. This can be very reassuring to a toddler because he learns that he can find you if you're not in his immediate presence. It also teaches critical thinking skills. Try making music together. Give him some pots and pans to bang on and sing We Will Rock You. He'll love it. Blow bubbles and have him catch as many as he can before they pop. This is always a favorite at that age. Put on a puppet show for him and act out one of his favorite stories. You can make puppets out of paper bags (he can help) or you can buy character puppets. Do arts and crafts. Make a mask out of a paper plate, have him color it and decorate it with stickers then cut out eyes nose and mouth and tie a string around it. Obviously, don't leave him alone with it since the string could get wrapped around his neck.

Answer 2

Sorry to be a party crasher, but yeah why would you be buying video games for a 2 year old. Thats super lame. If you must I would do like the others said with the V-smile or the Leapster as their games have a somewhat educational subject matter but it really doesn't substitute for real interaction with another human. She probably is really interested in hanging out with you & your husband not the games you happen to be playing. If you guys sat around reading books she would be just as intersted in that. A lot of games require reading skills anyway so its probably better to focus on that skill now. Otherwise she will end up being frustrated & that can ultimately take the fun out of the game anyway. Either that or you are going to end up playing the whole game for her & whats the point of that. Not to mention the hand eye coordination that most video games require. Sorry but they aren't really age appropriate. I know thats kinda not really answering the question, but it seems obvious that in our electronic world she will have her whole life to get into video games. However the window of time when a child still has a passion for knowledge is getting smaller & smaller, I encourage you to take advantage of that time while her little mind is still open to the idea.

Answer 3

Songs! This age loves activity songs, like the Hokey Pokey, HEad & Shoulders, etc. My two favorites are Little Bunny Foo Foo and Bear Hunt.
http://www.timmyabell.com/music/lyrics/ol/bearhunt.htm
http://www.kididdles.com/lyrics/l007.html

You can also play simplified Simon Says, Hide-n-Go-Seek, Tag.

I like the Zoom website for adult-led activities; http://pbskids.org/zoom/ The PBS Kids website has a lot of printables from all the shows, actually, for coloring pages. If you are introducing the internet, there are some computer-based games for kids on the website, too.

As someone said before me, shaving cream is a great way to spend an afternoon. Put it in a wading pool or a large plastic storage tub, strip your kid to the diaper or underwear, and let him go at it. If you don't mind stains, you can add food coloring to different portions of the shaving cream and he can mix the colors while he plays. You can also put plain gelatin in that wading pool and let him play in that. Food coloring injected into gelatin with a dropper is really cool to watch.

Filling different shaped objects with water and freezing them. Let him pick some of the containers and talk about which he thinks will freeze first. If you live in a cold climate, you can set some outside and some in the freezer.

He's also getting old enough to help cook. He can start pouring things from measuring cups into the mixing bowl, stirring, bringing things from the cabinets in his reach to the cook, throwing things away for you. Kids LOVE to be involved in grown-up activities like cooking. And they can typically do a lot more than we give them credit for. Make cookies or a smoothie together tomorrow. It could be a snack time ritual--he helps make snack every day.

And don't forget play dates!

Answer 4

Inside - 1) Roll the ball, bounce the ball. Just sit a few feet away with a soft ball and roll it back and forth. As his skills improve, start bouncing the ball back and forth. You see where this is going.

Inside 2) Marble in a box. Get a shallow (shoe box or shallower) box and a marble and some paint. Line box with white paper. Dip marble in paint. Have your son roll it around. Wash marble, pick another paint.

Outside - 1) Search for interesting things. You go out with an old glass jelly (or whatever) jar (washed of course) and wander around your yard or the park or whatever. You both get down really low and find interesting things.

Outside - 2) Run around the yard. Yes, just run. They don't care.

Outside 3) For when you're tired or massively pregnant. Play "toll booth". Draw a simple road on your driveway. Get your child on a ride on toy. You're the toll-taker. Child rides past you may times paying toll. He can give you real change or rocks or whatever; you decide based on your child.

Outside (till the days lengthen) #4 - go for flashlight walk around neighborhood (or yard). He gets to carry the flashlight. Just talk about stuff you see on the way.

Answer 5

Try hiding a large object in a room, like a teddy bear or pillow, and ask him to find it. Make it obvious so that he will find it without frustration. Is he able to use crayons? Try introducing them now. My 2 yr old LOVES to color. Go outside, and ask him to find a tree, a flower, a bird, a car, etc. He will love showing you how much he knows! He may not like to build towers with blocks, but he'll love to knock 'em down. Make a stack of blocks, and show him how to knock the pile over. Give him toy cars, and make ramps with books. Show him how to drive the cars up the ramps or roll them down.
Hope this gives you some ideas to build upon. My son loves to push small cars (not Matchbox yet-they're too small) back and forth across the boundaries of two different floor types, and even lines them up along the carpet egde to push them over one by one. He does this for a 1/2 hr at a time...

Answer 6

I just bought the V-Smile console for my 3 1/2, which is very educational, and I saw that they make one for 9 months to 2 or 3... It's absolutely fantastic. But if you prefer your child to spend time away from the tv, there's always good old pen and paper and paint and puzzles and blocks and "number 1, by far and never defeated"; good old books... Hope it helps

Answer 7

you could play fun learning games like, i play this game with my daughter where we sit in her room and go through her toy box and i wil pick something up and i will ask her what it is and she will say what it is and i wil make a funny joke or saying about it and she will laught all night about it. we play the hideing game where we take her toys and hide them all over the room and she as to find them. we paint and color together. i bought her little race cars cause she wanted some like her boy cousin had and we would sit on the floor and play raceing.

Answer 8

Go for some bead counting games, match making for fruits, vegetables, Alphabets, shapes etc that can help him learning while playing. Dancing with Nursery rhymes will also help.

Answer 9

well, anything hands on is great! especially at that age. I would reccomned that you let him play in weird feeling stuff, shaving cream, rice, noodles, cotton balls, and whatever you can find around the house that is safe of course! anything with noise that lights up or moves it great too. things that get him moving are good for him. well, i hope ive helped!!

Answer 10

The first thing I think of is read to him a lot.
Play cars and trucks with him on the floor. Hide & Seek is good.
Play outside with him.