These 30 plus super easy, budget-friendly activities for toddlers are a great way to help your little ones develop their fine motor skills.
Looking for activities for your to keep your busy little ones even busier? Below is a list of 30 + activities for toddlers beginning @ 2 Years Old. I have listed 32 activities here, but a few links include more than one activity. My little one is growing up and needs lots of motivational activities to help her develop. She is now 33 months old. These are some fun activities I have done with her and I bet your little ones will love, too. What is even better, is that most (if not all) of them are budget friendly and supper easy to make! No to mention, these activities help develop the senses, imagination, fine and large motor skills, and you name it…… The best part is that many of them are totally EDIBLE:) To view more of these activities, visit my All Things Baby Page under toddler activities/play. This post contains affiliate links for your convenience.
30 Plus Activities for Toddlers
Artsy Crafty!!
1. Rigatoni pasta necklaces and bracelets
2. Edible Necklaces with Froot Loops – Updated Wed Afternoon, August 24, 2022
3. Macaroni Pasta Arts and Crafts
4. Tin Can Pencil, Pen, or Crayon Holder with Popsicle Sticks
Sorting/Matching!!
5. Bottle Cap Sorting
Color me crazy!!
7. Coloring Books – Coloring books an all-time favorite item for kids. They are evergreen and have stand the test of time. You can find them in every size and for every age, from children to adults. Coloring books are not only fun to use, they teach children how to use colors, mix colors, hand-eye coordination, and how use their fine motor skills (i.e. their fingers for coloring).
8. Drawing – Kids love scribbling! Give them some plain paper or a doddle pad, some crayons or a pencil and let them scribble/draw. Our kids love using printer paper, even though they have sketch paper. Here’s a cute unicorn cover sketch pad and this one that’s sure to get your little unicorn princess scribbling in no time. And let’s not forget this out-of-space pad and that sketch pad for your little prince.
9. Edible Finger Paint – You can make edible finger paint at home using safe ingredients from your pantry.
10. Homemade Puffy Paint –
11. Homemade Rainbow Crayons – Rainbow crayons are so fun to make and you can create fun shapes by using chocolate molds or ice trays. However, the process of removing the paper can be daunting.
12. Other Painting Activities For Toddlers – Check out these super easy painting ideas for your toddler.
Sensory Play!!!
13. Mini Jello Building Blocks – This activity was really fun to create and the even more fun to play with. The jello is so jiggly, lol.
14. Ocean Themed Sensory Bottle – Make a sensory bottle with just a few items. Kids love to shake and watch what happens as the things in the jar falls down.
16. Rice Play
17. Homemade Goop/Slime
18. Homemade Play Doug – No Cook
All Things Make a Mess!!
19. Cornmeal “Sandbox” Toddler Play
20. Play Sand Fun – Updated
21. Moon Sand #1 with Flour and Canola Oil
22. Moon Sand #2 with Play Sand and Cornstarch
23. Homemade Bubbles
Experimenting!!
24. Baking Soda & Vinegar Experiment – Updated
More fun for indoor/outdoor!!
25. Chalk Talk
26. Homemade Ball Pit
28. Shopping Cart Items for Toddlers Using Empty Food Cartoons
Learn to do a chore!!
30. Teach Your Toddler to Wash Dishes
31. Plant Watering Fun
32. Lunch Picnic At Home
What are some of your super easy, budget friendly toddler activities? I would love to hear about them and add them to my toddler’s list!
Love the round up! I can’t wait til mine gets older to try some of these out 🙂
How old are yours??????
I don’t have any toddlers anymore. My youngest is 8. This looks like a fun list though. Enjoy them with your little one. I love 2 years old- one of my favorite ages.
The little ones are great for sure. We have fun with all those activities!
Oh my! Puffy paint and edible finger paint! Totally bookmarking this for rainy days and weekend fun with my kiddos! My kids love planting flower seeds. I let them pick out a packet of seeds of their choice, we plant them in a pot and its their responsibility to water them! So much fun! And awesome to see their delight when flowers sprout!
Planting the seeds sounds good, too. We tried planting, the only thing that came out was some green beans, lol
Yay! So glad to have read this! I was just thinking today that I need activities for my little man. He is only 13 months old, but it’s good to have some ideas for the future and I am sure I can do some of these now! Thanks!
I had to come up with somethings. Keeping up with 2 little ones was a lot of work, but the activities really helped. Our 8 month old was able to do some of these as well (eg. the rice play sensory one).
Awesome list! My kids are 18, 18 and 20 so long past toddler stage but they would have been great for our beginning homeschool years!
LOL…18, 18, 20….I am sure you are probably thinking that they are still toddlers right??? Maybe the way they act, lol
I dont have any little ones any more but these would all be great to do with new little grandson. Great ideas!
Thanks Kat! I am sure your grandson will love those!
These are such cute ideas! I’m sharing with my sisters who both have little ones I know would love these fun crafting activities! Thank you so much for sharing! xo xo
Thanks Cindy….I really appreciate you sharing it to your sister!
My little girl is just about exactly this age. I’m excited to try some of these out, especially the jiggly blocks and edible finger paint and dishwashing. She does dishes with me, but she’s not learning much. :]
What is nice about these is that they are just so simple to make…Who would have thought???!!!!!!!!!
I don’t have kids but my friends’ kids will definitely enjoy these! I especially love the homemade goop/slime. Seems like something even I can try!! Thanks for sharing.
Daou, thanks for commenting!!!!! Hopefully, your friend’s kids will enjoy them:)
I have an autistic son whom I am sure would love some of these recipes! Heck, I know I would love playing with moon sand and slime LOL Thanks for this!
LOL!!!!!!!!! That is just funny! Thank you for taking the time to comment and wanting to try some of these!
What an amazing list! I remember how hard it can be to entertain toddlers, in fact, I still struggle with my 6 year old sometimes and might try some of the activities with her!
It is very hard to keep them entertained for sure. Mine is way to active so these activities really seemed to help!
This is a great resource. At times I wish mine were back at this age. I will share with my daughter that babysits. It may come in handy for her.
Thanks Tamara….I really appreciate your comment and your sharing it with your sister!
Aw, I can’t wait to do some of these with my son! I think making homemade Play Dough would be a lot of fun.
Don’t they just look like something to eat..the play dough??? I wanted to play with them myself!!!!LOL
My daughters been watching a friends 2 year old and I’m going to pass this on. She’s having a blast with him but I’m sure there will be days coming up that they will get bored lol With the weather turning she’d better get the messy one’s outside before our Seattle rain comes back.
This looks like an awesome list! I don’t have any kids yet, but I can’t wait to have some. I could definitely see myself going down this whole list, trying them all. 😀
Thanks so much Devoted Sonriser! They are really fun to do:)
AWESOME round-up, Zan! My kiddos are 8 and 10 now and I REALLY could have used this list a few years back. I love finding fun activities for them and their friends on blogs and on Pinterest. What did we do before the internet?
LOL, what did we do before the internet?????? LOL..
Thanks so much for commenting!
If I had a toddler we would be in heaven with all of these activities!
LOL…Thank you so much, though!
Nice tips for making kids happy. Yes kids attract to colors 🙂
Thanks, Anil!!
Fun list! I’m loving the edible necklace idea. We also used to do make-your-own playdough and finger painting with shaving cream. I think edible would be better 🙂
See I thought about the shaving cream but I was a bit skeptical for the 2 year old—may get it in her mouth or something. Love your blog!!!
Such an awesome list – thanks somuch for sharing!
Thanks Shashi..You are welcome!
What a great source of ideas this post is. I love the corn meal sandbox idea! Thanks for sharing all these wonderful ideas.
You are welcome! Thanks for visiting:)
I love this list!
I will be pining it to look back at later and sharing with my Mom’s group right now!
Thanks a bunch!
Great list. I’ll have to remember this for my grandbaby!
Grandbaby?? You sure do not look like you have grand kids:)
I have 4 children and two are still the ages to enjoy these activities! Thank you so much for sharing. I will be going through and pinning them for sure!
Ahhhh..makes me feel special:) Thanks for pinning!
My kids love anything messy, crafty, and love playing matching games. Great list.
Thank you Jessica!!
This is a great list of ideas. I did lots of them when my kids were young.
Thank you, Pam:)
Many of these activities can be added to for preschoolers and early elementary. Thanks for sharing!
Jennifer @ The Jenny Evolution
http://www.thejennyevolution.com
Thank you Jennifer….I appreciate commenting!
Thanks! Gonna bookmark this one
Thanks Tiffany!
Love those ideas! We do preschool crafts and would love to add these.
Thank you so much:)
What a great post! I’m not a mom yet, but am waiting to adopt children from foster care. It’s likely that we may have a toddler somewhere in the mix, so I pinned this for later 🙂 Thanks for sharing these ideas!
Thank you April….. I hope the activities work out for the kiddos later.
What a great collection of activities! I don’t have kids, but if I ever find myself babysitting, I will definitely have things to entertain them. Thanks for sharing!
Thank you so much for stopping by..Hope you would be able to use some of these activities someday.
I love the round up there are some great things for kids to do.
Thanks….I really enjoyed reading your post, too….
I love this list. My favorite is making crayons, but I also appreciate the sensory trays thanks to my daughter’s sensory processing disorder.
ahhhhhhhhhhh…thanks Jenn for visiting and commenting!
Great idea round up! I realize kind of sadly that my youngest, being five, is just a tiny bit too old for some of these, but we did have a lot of fun doing stuff like this when he was younger. In fact, I loved toddler age with all five of my kiddos. I’m going to forward your page over to my sister in law for my two year old niece, she’d love these. Great work, I know it took tons of time to put this list together, and it’s really a wonderful one 🙂
Hi Molly, thank you for stopping by. It took a lot of time and motivation but we made it through:)
Thanks, Zan! I haven’t done the jello cubes stacking so would love to try that soon. So sad that some of the links didn’t work out, like the jello and oats tray. I will bookmark this and come back to it for more rainy day activities!
Lori, I went to check on the post and clicked on the links you mentioned, the work fine for me…not sure why it is not connecting for you…So sorry!
My kids are 10 & 13 so our fun is much different now. But, this list looks fantastic!
Thanks….it is truly a good list for little ones.
This is such a cute post! I don’t have any toddlers, yet I know some Moms who do, so I’ll be sure to share this page. Your website is so bright and fun – I love the design! All the best to you and your sweet family.
Ahhh…what a sweet comment. Thanks for your encouraging words!
This post comes at a great time. My 2-year-old nephew is coming for a visit soon and I like to have fun stuff planned. I’m pinning right now 🙂
Thanks for pinning and using for your nephew….Hope he enjoys some of these activities:)
There are some great ideas in this post! I really try and cook with the kids as much as possible. They enjoy it and so do I.
I am also amazed about how much they enjoy certain chores. Like mopping. We make it a family event. And putting clothes in the washer or dryer. My toddlers just think it’s the most fun ever.
I think it’s all about the simple things – the quality time spent together.
You are right…the simple things of life truly make toddlers happy!
I just know you are going to make a lot of toddler moms very happy when they read this blog!
Ahhhhhhhhhhhh..Thanks so much for that comment!!
Hi and thanks for sharing. I wish this post was around when my daughter was a toddler but honestly she’s 8 and I think she would still like some of these crafts.
Thanks Crystal @frugalscout
It seems like they never grow out of certain stages, right….Confession…even I had a blast creating and getting into some of them with the kids:)
Great list I have two year old twin grandsons so will have lots to do with them. Thanks!
Ahhhhhh…..twins:) Thanks! I hope they enjoy them:)
So cool! I don’t have kids yet but this is a great idea for stimulating their senses or at least the edible ideas will be tasty! I will pass this along to a friend that has a 2 yr old.
Thanks Karen…………..I love your styles..and I need some help for real!!!!!!
Those look like fun! Now I just have to find me some toddlers to play with!
LOL………..
This is perfect timing! I start watching my four-year-old niece next week! And, I haven’t had a toddler in the house in a long time, since my youngest is almost 16! Great list!
Hi there Kristin, thanks much!. I was not sure how to navigate your site….Help..lol