Hobbies And Interests
Collages
Decide how large you would like your toddler's collage to be and cut transparent contact paper to size, laying it flat on a table low enough for your toddler to get busy sticking on colorful paper. Cut out an assortment of shapes from colorful felt squares and give them to your toddler to stick onto the contact paper. Cut up colorful glossy pictures from magazines to stick onto the collage. Provide an array of colorful fluffy feathers and cut up ribbons to stimulate the child's imagination. Tear up aluminum foil and crimp for strikingly different effects. Allow your toddler to decide where he'll stick the different items and shapes, to empower his creative instincts. When your child is happy with his creation, cut an equal size of transparent contact paper, place it on top of your toddler's creation, sticky side in, and frame it with masking tape.
Faces
Place a regular disposable paper plate in front of your child and one in front of you. You'll need dry macaroni for the eyebrows, large colored buttons for the eyes, colored yarn or dry spaghetti for hair and you can have your toddler give his plate-face creation a mouth out of dry beans. Make a nose from a piece of red felt cut into a triangle. Stick on all the features of the face with glue and allow to dry. Stick the creations up on the fridge or display them on the child's bedroom wall.
Painting
Give your toddler a large piece of white or colored cartridge paper and an assortment of brightly colored finger paints. Show him how to create hand prints and footprints by covering his hands and feet with different colored paints and by walking around on the paper or by pressing his hands down on the paper. This activity tends to get messy and needs strict supervision as toddlers tend to forget they have paint on the soles of their feet and will walk around on your floors, carpets, or sheepskin rugs without thinking--they're just having fun.
Games
Sit your toddler on your lap and play online ABC games with him; this introduces language arts at an early age in a format that toddlers understand and find fascinating. Toddlers love pressing the keyboard, just like mom, and are transfixed by the colors and movement on the computer monitor.
Education
Provide your toddler with a white board and colored dry erase markers to create pictures or letters, or to allow him to scribble. As he picks up a marker, ask him what color it is; tell him if he doesn't know or if he gets the answer wrong. This activity is suitable for playing in the car on long trips.