My husband and I are quite busy during weekday, we have a 2y/o sweety~~~When weekend come,I always try to spend more times with her. Sometimes, taking her out for picnic is quite messy and tired, while only staying at home reading and cooking is not that interactive~~~any game that I would play with my kid???.......
You can also play hid and seek with a toy.. Hide a toy and then have the child search
for it or the opposite, have the child hide it and you have to find it..
Puzzles
Play store with real cans and shopping bags..
memory game.. use just a few cards. Go to a park an let her run. hop. , red light/green light.
finger painting, playdoh, hide and seek ...
Build a fort out of some chairs and blankets. Have a tea party where you both dress up. Go to a park. Bake cookies together.
My 2.5 year old doesn't care much WHAT we're doing, just that we're doing it together! So, we'll fold laundry and put it away or unload the dishwasher (I do the sharp/heavy stuff first, obviously) or dust. Kids that age LOVE to help AND you get the house stuff done :)
Some things are better in theory than in reality--like picnics.
What about blocks, dolls, painting, coloring, dancing, playing simple musical instruments, letting her bang on pots and pans, play doh, Barbies, mega bloks, Hullaballoo, Hungry Hippos, flipping cards into a basket, pick up sticks, play food for "cooking", sticker books, draw letters in pudding on the table, look at picture books, sing songs, collect leaves at the park, take a walk, pull her around in a wagon at the park, push her on the swings, slides, etc?
I second Liz's suggestion of Hide and Seek, my kids have loved it from 2-7. We also do Hiding of objects. Right now, we have a bowl of 9 plastic pumpkins, and I hide them around the room (only in visible places, where no drawers, doors, etc have to be opened) and they have to search for them and return them to the bowl.
We also like to turn on a fun song and dance - sometimes a pop song and free dance, sometimes something like Twinkle Little Star, that I teacher her movements to. We also loved dancing along to Wiggles videos.
At that age, my DD liked to look thru magazines - we would look for something like "red things" - she would point to them, I cut them out, and then we glued them on a piece of construction paper with "Red Things" written at the top - we also did "Food" "People" "Animals", etc - great skills to have!
Tea parties with stuffed animals!
Enjoy her, those days go soooo quickly!
I am a first time M., but before i has my own i use to get all of my god kids. if u don't want to take her out. just play with her in the house i am sure she will just enjoy your company. play with her toys with her or any games that you can teach her how to play she will enjoy M. baby time.
Yes, I think picnics are a huge amount of effort and I hate eating cold food. I need a warm, square meal. But I LOVE to be outdoors. So we used to feed the ducks and just go to a great park in the area. If you google your address you'll find all kinds of parks and greenways nearby that you probably didn't even know were there. Then play tag, climb trees, roll down the hills together.
She truly doesn't care WHAT you are doing as long as you are doing it with her!!! Start teaching her about the "joys" of the things that need to be done around the house....have her help you fold the laundry...or sort the laundry into whites and darks for washing. Have her "help" you dust or sweep the floor or clean the windows. You will be having fun together AND she will be learning that keeping the house clean is a family affair!!
Do you have a collection of books....rhythm instruments....for her to enjoy? It is something that easily lends itself to Mom and Dad interacting with the little one.
I have a grandson who will be 3 in Dec....and they let his interests guide what they do. He ADORES trains...so they spend a lot of time down at the little train station...waiting for trains to come by....and he is also heavily into Dinosaurs so if there is a dinosaur display at a local museum or nature center you can bet they are there!! Trips to the library are high on his list...he loves going to pick out the next set of books that they are going to enjoy together. He also enjoys going to nature centers and learning about the animals.
Art projects are a big deal for him....and he loves helping Mom cook....he can do the measuring and stirring...and even loves to help with washing the dishes!!!
You live in a really great area for things to do.... New York City this time of year should be a wealth of things to see and do!!! Just touring the Christmas decorations should keep you busy until the new year...lol.
Do things that help you encourage her to grow into the person that you would like her to be....adopt a family for Christmas and let her help pick out the gifts you are going to give them...or find a neighbor who is lonely and doesn't have family nearby and have her help you bake cookies to take to them. Let her draw a "picture" to take along with the gift. Have her help you bake some banana nut bread and take it to the local fire station or police station and explain to her how those men and women work to help keep her safe. She is not going to understand everything about it right now but she will be learning and growing and developing as you have fun together.
great to get outside - just to go for a walk around the neighborhood, talk to the neighbors, talk about the leaves, trees, notice what she notices, go sledding, look at the horses in Central Park.
