Desert Theme Toddler Activities

Cucumber Cactus

• You can teach your toddler all about the types of plants that are found in deserts by helping her make her own cactus. For this activity you need a cucumber, toothpicks, graham crackers, a plastic bag and a glass bowl. Put the graham crackers into a plastic bag and crush them until the crackers look like sand. Your toddler will enjoy helping you with this part. Then, empty the graham crackers into the glass bowl. The crackers are now the desert sand. Cut the cucumber in half and have your toddler stick the cucumber with the toothpicks. The cucumber represents the cactus, and toothpicks are the cactus spines. For the finale, place the cucumber into the glass bowl, burying the exposed part of the cucumber into the graham cracker sand. The cucumber should be able to stand up straight.

Coloring Activities

• Toddlers love to color. Come up with desert-themed animals or scenes for them to color, such as rattlesnakes, mountains, cacti and coyotes. Find printouts of desert images or draw them yourself and have your toddler color them in. You can expand on this activity by creating a giant desert image on a large sheet of construction paper. Give your toddler various images to color and then cut out with craft scissors. Then your toddler can glue the images onto the construction paper. Together, fill in the blank parts of the construction paper with crayons to create a sunset behind the mountain peaks.

Gila Monster Mask

• Gila monsters are lizards that are native to many deserts. They are usually found with a black and yellow color combination. With your toddler, create a Gila monster mask that she can wear for fun. Take a white paper plate and paint it yellow. Then, paint black designs over the yellow so that it begins to look like a Gila monster. Cut out two spots in the plate for the eyes, once the plate is dry. Take a piece of black felt and cut it out to look like a tongue, which you can glue to the mouth of the Gila monster on the plate. The last step is to glue a large craft stick to the bottom of the mask so that your toddler can hold the mask up to her face when she wants to wear it.

Sand Jar

• A sand jar is something that you can make together with your toddler. Introduce her to the colors of the desert. Deserts have a lot of brown, because of the sand, but they also have green for the cacti, purple flowers, pink and orange sunsets and yellow for all the sunshine. Purchase colored sand bags and a glass jar from a craft store. With your toddler, begin to fill the jar with one of the colors. Ask your toddler what the color represents in the desert. Then, allow her to select the next color to pour into the sand jar, and repeat the activity until the jar is filled with layers of colorful sand.