7 Fun and Engaging Activities for 1 Year Old

Finding activities for a 1 year old baby can be very tough. Toddlers look for more and more activities, and as parents it’s hard for us to find fun, easy and engaging activities for them. While it’s very tempting to buy expensive toys, the truth is a lot can be done through simple household material. Check out this article to know more..

7 Quick and Engaging Activities to Try with Your 1-Year-Old

The best activities for a 1 year old tend to be ones which involve exploring, moving, and imitating. Your kitchen utensils, recycled containers, and even your laundry basket can all become tools for learning and play.

Activity 1  – Sensory Play: Let Them Feel Their Way Through the World

Fill a container with sand or rice or pulses or anything which is easy to hold, and then hide toys or other objects in it. Give kids scoopers, tweezers and other tools and let them go digging, scooping and pouring in search of their toys! Sensory play invites toddlers to explore textures, sounds, and even temperatures. It helps in building focus and fine motor skills. 

Activity 2 – Fine Motor Play: Little Hands Doing Big Work

Let the tiny fingers learn to grasp, pinch, and poke. Here are quick and easy activities that can help strengthen the small muscles needed for writing, dressing, and feeding later on.

• Put some pom poms in a large kitchen whisk, and see if your toddler can get them out again. It’s an interesting activity to get your toddler to do while you are busy with other household chores. 

• Take an empty wipes box or any other box, fill it with scraps of fabric that are both long and short, rough and smooth, and different colors and patterns. Your tot will be delighted to reach in, pull out, and investigate each one, which helps with fine motor coordination. 

Activity 3 – Gross Motor Play: Moving and Grooving

1 year old babies are learning to move either by crawling, pulling up, standing, and sometimes even toddling. Try activities which encourage squatting, reaching, crawling, or throwing a ball help develop balance, coordination, and confidence. Plus, they burn energy (which we all know is a bonus).

• Sit on the floor facing your tot with your legs out in a “V” shape, and have your toddler sit facing you doing the same. Roll a big playing ball to them, then see if they can grab it and roll it back to you. It’s a good activity to get kids to learn to play together. 

• Make your child stack toys on top of each other. When they do this, the toys may fall off multiple times, kids will learn the concept of “big” and “small” and understand the basic building concepts. 

Activity 4 – Arts & Crafts: Creativity in Action

Arts and crafts introduce colors, shapes, and textures while helping toddlers express themselves. 

• Take a piece of paper and draw a big tree or any fruit which they like. Let your toddler use their little fingers through paint and color the drawing. It gives them a sense of achievement when they finish coloring

• Tape a piece of contact paper to the wall, sticky side out. Then give your toddler shapes, pom poms, animal images etc. Get your toddler stick these shapes, images on the paper and make a beautiful collage

Activity 5 – Participate in Household work

Kids are very fascinated with cleaning and pretending to participate in household work. This helps in strengthening their hands and also understanding their belongings.

• Let them spray water with a spray bottle or let them contribute to household work by picking things for you from one place to another. 

• Give them a small dough from your kitchen. Let their small hands do the magic and soon they will come back with creative images from that dough 

Activity 6 – Practice Matching skills

Buy a color-sorting or shape-sorting toy, or put different colored papers, toys, shapes in a box and having your kid sort these paper / toy/ shapes by color. Another activity could be to fill old jars with different materials such as coins, popcorn kernels, rice, cereal, etc. Seal up the jar well, then let your kid shake away and hear how each one makes a different sound. 

Activity 7 – Indoor/Outdoor Fun

If you have big cardboard boxes, then use that to make a tunnel. Put their toys or objects on the way. Let your child crawl through these boxes and find these toys or objects on the way !  Another way could be to hide balls , toys at different locations. Get your kiddo to go find them. Feel free to adjust the challenge based on your toddler’s skill, but colors usually make it easy for them to spot. 

These activities are not only enjoyable but also contribute to your baby’s development in different ways!

What parenting tips have you found helpful? Share your experiences in the comments below.

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