Development Tips: 25 to 48 Months

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  • With your child: make animals, people, etc., from pipe cleaners, string large beads, use play money.
  • Make a tent with and old curtain, sheet or blanket draped over a card table or two chairs.
  • Make puppets from old socks. Tell a story with characters.
  • Plant seeds in paper cups (lemon, orange, grapefruit seeds, grass seeds, carrot top, sweet potato, etc.).
  • Cut and paste together on a piece of cardboard scraps of old fabric.
  • Use cardboard boxes like blocks.
  • Play dress-up.
  • Dance to a favorite song on the stereo.
  • Finger paint a design on a table using shaving cream.
  • Use modeling clay or “playdoh” (get out the cookie cutters, rolling pins, silverware, etc.)
  • Blow and catch bubbles.
  • Make puppets from paper bags.
  • Give crayons and paper and let him create a picture (scribbling is important at an early age).
  • Fill the sink or dishpan with water and let your child play: provide cups, sponges, etc.
  • Read and listen to stories (books and records).
  • Sail boats in the bathtub.
  • Play store.
  • Make string or yarn designs (glue onto paper, wood, etc.).
  • Make and fly paper airplanes.
  • Make popsicle stick designs (glue them).
  • Fly a kite.
  • Make “things” with egg cartons (tulips, caterpillars, etc.)
  • Play a color game (I see something red).
  • Have a race, running on feet, knees, crawling, holding ankles, running backwards, etc.).
  • Have a pea race, blowing dried peas with a straw.
  • Make a “feel” box (cut a hole in the side of a box and put an object inside of the box; have the child tell what it is by feeling it).
  • Teach numbers and letters by cutting them out of sandpaper.
  • Make a picture dictionary (a page for each letter with pictures beginning with that letter).
  • Weigh things if you have a bathroom scale (yourselves, toys, objects).
  • Talk about time with your child (make a clock with a paper plate and hands cut from colored paper).
  • Make a counting carton (number each section of an empty egg carton, 1-12).
  • Play “Simon Says” (leader gives commands and others obey when preceded by the two words “Simon Says”).
  • Play musical chairs.
  • Imitate animal’s movements (frog, horse, fish, bird, duck, snake, spider, etc.).
  • Set up an obstacle course in the backyard (cardboard boxes, barrels, old tires, ropes, etc.).
  • Play a pantomime games (have your child act out a word such as hop, swim, comb, wash, chew, zipper book, swallow)