Fun Ways to Teach Toddlers Life Skills Through Play

At my in-home childcare program, I prioritize helping toddlers develop independent skills early on, setting a strong foundation before they transition to a morning preschool program or head off to kindergarten. My goal is to send them off equipped with basic skills that give them a head start and prepare them for further learning.

While we often focus on numbers, colors, shapes, and letters, which are undeniably important, we also emphasize practical life skills. These include tasks like putting on their coat independently or using an open cup without spilling. Mastering these skills not only boosts their confidence but also encourages self-sufficiency.

Teaching toddlers these practical skills can be both fun and educational. By incorporating playful techniques and engaging activities, we make the learning process enjoyable. In this post, I’ll share creative ways to introduce essential skills such as putting on shoes, using utensils, developing scissor skills, and gluing skills. These activities are designed to help your little ones learn through play, making everyday tasks exciting and achievable.

Why Teaching These Skills to Toddlers Is Important

Before we begin the fun stuff, let’s first understand some of the reasons building these skills in our littles is so important. Why taking the time is worth it rather than just always doing it ourselves.

Building Independence

One of the primary benefits of teaching these skills is to encourage independence. When toddlers learn to dress themselves, use utensils, and manage simple tasks, they gain confidence in their abilities. This self-assurance encourages them to try new things and take on more responsibilities.

These skills are crucial as they grow older. When a child feels comfortable taking on these tasks independently, they can concentrate on other things like their school work.

These independent skills will also greatly help you and other future caregivers and teachers of these littles.

• Consider getting 5 toddlers prepared to go outside to play, you need to get everyone ready one by one. This process can take time. Now your group can get their coats and shoes on themselves and you can prepare their water bottles or help the infants.

Enhancing Fine Motor Skills

Activities like using scissors, manipulating buttons and zippers, and handling glue help toddlers develop fine motor skills. These skills involve the coordination of small muscles in the hands and fingers, which are necessary for tasks such as writing, drawing, and other school-related activities. By practicing these skills early, children can improve their dexterity and hand-eye coordination, making future tasks easier and more manageable.

Preparing for School Readiness

Mastering these basic life skills prepares toddlers for the structured environment of preschool and kindergarten. When children can dress themselves, use utensils properly, and manage their personal needs, they are better prepared to focus on learning academic skills. This readiness gives them a head start and helps them transition smoothly into the school setting.

Developing Patience and Perseverance

Learning new skills often requires practice and persistence. By encouraging toddlers to keep trying, even when tasks are challenging, we help them develop patience and perseverance. These traits are invaluable as they encounter obstacles as they grow.

Make Getting Ready Fun!

The key to getting ready with shoes and coats is to have simple items provided. Skip the cute tie shoes or fancy buckles. Master the skill of putting these items on first then move to the next skills.

This is a great song to add to your circle time, getting ready for outside routine, or when practicing these skills.

Putting on Shoes

• Shoe Sorting: Create a shoe-sorting activity where your child matches shoes by color, size, or type. This not only helps with organization but also reinforces the concept of pairing shoes correctly.
• Sticker Match: To help littles put their shoes on the correct feet, try taking a larger sticker, cutting it in half, then stick one on the left shoe and one on the right shoe. If they have put their shoes on the correct feet the sticker should create a picture!
• Shoe Tying Craft: While I don’t recommend you start with tie shoes, I do think it is important to introduce shoe tying to children. This is a cute craft you can make with cardboard and yarn!

Getting on Their Coat

Whether taking a couple kiddos out to play or transporting a group to school, having children independently able to slip on coats is a task I encourage all childcare providers and parents to work on. There’s not enough you to go around and most children dislike being last.

• Dress up station: Add a dress up station to your dramatic play area. Be sure to add coats in with your superhero capes and police vests.
• Morning songs: Make getting ready part of your morning lessons. Whether you do a morning circle time, craft or learning session.

Mastering Buttons and Zippers

• Clothes fastening board: Having items like this clothes fastening board available in your dramatic play area or other toy spaces is a wonderful way to introduce buttons and zippers.

Encouraging Hands-On Hygiene

Teaching toddlers about hygiene through playful activities can set the foundation for healthy habits that last a lifetime. Using creative methods to make hygiene fun ensures that these essential skills are easy to remember and practice.

Washing Hands

• Sing-Along Songs: Choose a handwashing song like “This is the way we wash our hands,” set to the tune of “Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush.” Singing while scrubbing ensures they wash for the recommended 20 seconds.
• Handwashing sensory station: Create a simple sensory station with soapy water. Take a used up soap container and fill with water and allow children to pump the water out as they would soap in the bathroom.
• Bubble Fun: Make handwashing time bubble time! Use foamy soap and let them play with bubbles while washing. It’ll make the process more enjoyable and thorough.

Using a Tissue

Getting a toddler to figure out how to blow their nose is not always the easiest task. I’ve created a list of fun ways to practice so hopefully when your littles need this, they’ll be ready!

• Tissue Dance: For this activity all you need is a tissue and some fun music. Have your littles first use their mouths to blow the tissue up into the air. Once they’ve figured out that concept, see if they can use their nose to blow air to keep the tissue up.
• Tissue Tube: Use a toilet paper tube and loosely tuck a tissue into the end. First have the children use their mouth to blow the tissue out of the tissue tube, then have them do the same with their nose.
• Nose-Blowing Puppet: Create a simple puppet with a tissue box as the puppet’s nose. Show toddlers how the puppet ‘blows’ its nose by pulling a tissue out. You can even add a funny voice to make it more engaging.

Developing Kitchen Skills

When children participate in preparing their meals, they become more interested in the foods they eat. This involvement can lead to a greater willingness to try new foods and make healthier choices.

Helping In The Kitchen:

Washing Fruits and Vegetables: Let your toddler help wash fruits and vegetables. This simple task is safe and allows them to be involved in meal preparation.

Assembling Simple Dishes: Involve your toddler in assembling simple dishes like sandwiches, pizzas, or fruit salads. Let them choose ingredients and arrange them, fostering creativity and decision-making.

Using Cookie Cutters: Let your child use cookie cutters to cut out shapes from dough. This is a fun and creative activity that helps with hand strength and coordination.

Using Utensils

• Scooping Stations: Set up a scooping station with different textures and consistencies. Use items like yogurt, applesauce, and mashed potatoes. Let your toddler practice scooping and transferring the food from one bowl to another. Make it a sensory experience by using colorful and varied textures.
• Animal Feeder Game: Set up your sensory table with this fun animal feeder game!! Simply cut out the face, attach to a piece of cardboard, cut out the mouth, then use spoons to feed the animal items from your sensory bin such as rice or corn kernels.
• Fruit Salad Fun: Prepare a fruit salad with bite-sized pieces. Let your toddler use a fork to pick up the different fruits. This colorful and tasty activity encourages them to practice using a fork while enjoying a healthy snack.

Cutting Fruit with a Childs Knife

• Use Child-Safe Knives: Invest in child-safe knives that are designed to cut through soft fruits like bananas, strawberries, or avocados. These knives are usually made of plastic or have a blunted edge.
• Fruit Fun Time: Turn the cutting activity into a game. For example, make shapes out of the fruit slices and encourage your child to arrange them in creative patterns.
• Playdough: Playdough is a wonderful activity to continue practicing cutting with your child-safe knives.

Pouring Drinks

• Water Play Station: Set up a water pouring station in a large basin on the floor or outside with various-sized measuring cups and colorful pitchers. This way, spills are part of the fun and easy to clean.
• Pouring Games: Create simple games where your child needs to pour water from one container to another without spilling. You can mark levels on the containers to make it more of a challenge.
• Practice with Different Textures: Use materials like dry rice or beans for pouring practice to vary the texture and weight of the pouring activity.

Water pouring stations are sure to be a hit! Make sure to have towels handy and have your littles help in the cleanup process!

Mixing Ingredients

• Simple Recipes: Start with easy recipes like making homemade playdough, which involves mixing flour, water, and food coloring. This is both a fun activity and a practical science lesson on how substances combine.
• Color Experiments: Show them how mixing different food coloring can create new colors, turning the mixing process into a mini art project.
• Reindeer Food: During the Christmas holidays we love to make reindeer food to sprinkle outside to attract Santa’s reindeer. Simply give your child a couple containers with oats to pour into a large bowl. Have them mix between each pour. Then give them a couple containers of different colored edible glitter (the magic!) to pour and mix. Finally scoop into a little container or baggy.
• Sensory stations: Set up your sensory station with oats, colored pompoms, pieces of yarn, and other various materials that can be put together and separated easily. Let the children mix them together with large spoon. Give prompts such as add 2 meatballs (pompoms), 3 pieces of spaghetti (string), and a scoop of sauce (oats).

Making Clean Up Time Fun

Putting Away Toys

• Timer Challenge: Use a timer to turn toy cleanup into a race. Challenge your toddler to see how many toys they can put away before the timer goes off. This adds a sense of urgency and excitement.
• Cleanup Song: Create a fun and catchy cleanup song. Singing while tidying up makes the task feel less like a chore and more like a game. You might even find them singing it on their own. We love the cleanup song by the kiboomers.
• Simple Tasks: Seeing a playroom mess can be just as overwhelming for a toddler as it can for an adult. Where to begin?! Give each child one task at a time. Not only is this a fun way to play a game of I-Spy, but the job is getting done and items will more likely be put where they go rather than everything muddled together.  

Cleaning Up Spills

• Sensory bin clean up: Add cleaning up the sensory station part of your child’s clean up routine. If using water, have them wipe any spills. If using rice, have them sweep spills. By teaching them to clean this space after themselves, not only will this area be less of a mess, but eventually children may begin to realize it’s better to keep the supplies in the bin.
• Easily accessible supplies: Do you ever wonder why those little vaccums that kids love so much don’t actually work? This is one of the favorite toys in my dramatic play area. Consider keeping a set of cleaning items such as cloths, small broom and dust pan, etc, in a space where children can easily access if they notice a spill.
• Cleanup Relay: Organize a cleanup relay where your toddler races from one spill to the next. Set a timer and see how quickly they can clean each spill. It’s a fun way to build speed and efficiency.

Independent Use of Craft Supplies

Handling Scissors and Glue

1. Child-Safe Scissors: Ensure that you provide child-safe scissors. These scissors are designed to cut paper but are safer for little hands.
2. Supervised Craft Sessions: Create a designated craft area where you can closely supervise. This setup allows toddlers to feel a sense of independence while you monitor for safety.
3. Glue Fun: Use glue sticks instead of liquid glue to reduce mess and make it easier for small hands to manage. Another alternative is a small bowl of glue with a cotton swab, simply dip the cotton swab in the glue and transfer it to your paper.

Scissor Skills

• Cutting Playdough: Use playdough to introduce scissors to your toddler. Show them how to cut through the soft dough with safety scissors. This provides a low-pressure way to practice cutting and build confidence.
• Cutting Collages: Provide old magazines or catalogs and let your child cut out pictures they like. They can then use these cutouts to create a collage, combining scissor practice with glueing skills.
• Fringe Fun: Draw lines on the edge of a piece of paper and let your child cut along these lines to create fringes. This repetitive motion is great for building confidence and accuracy with scissors.
• Cutting Paths: Draw winding paths on paper and encourage your toddler to cut along the paths. Make the paths different widths and shapes to keep it interesting and challenging.

Gluing Skills

• Glue Dots: Place small dots of glue on paper and have your child stick small objects like buttons, pom-poms, or sequins on each dot. This helps them learn to control the glue and place items accurately.
• Collage Creations: Give your child a variety of materials such as tissue paper, fabric scraps, and cut-out shapes. Encourage them to glue these onto a larger piece of paper to create their own unique collage.
• Nature Collage: Collect leaves, flowers, and small twigs from outside. Let your child glue these natural items onto a piece of paper to create a nature collage. This combines a love of the outdoors with practicing gluing skills.
• Paper Tearing Craft: Have your children tear pieces of construction paper then glue the pieces on a template to create a picture. This not only helps their gluing skills, but also adds in the fine motor tearing process.

Learning Directions

Teaching spatial awareness and following directions can be both educational and entertaining. Incorporate activities like treasure hunts and obstacle courses to make the learning process engaging.

Treasure Hunts: Create a simple treasure hunt with easy-to-follow clues. Use picture clues for toddlers who can’t read yet. This activity helps them understand directions like “under,” “next to,” and “behind.”

Obstacle Courses: Set up a safe obstacle course using everyday household items. Instructions like “crawl under the chair” or “hop over the pillow” teach them to listen and follow spatial directions.

Fun Directional Activities:

• Map Drawing: Draw simple maps together and use them during your treasure hunts. It adds excitement and teaches them to interpret basic symbols and directions.
• Dance and Move: Play music and use directional cues in songs, such as “turn around,” “jump up,” and “step back.” It’s a fun way to learn movement-related directions.

All Around the Farm | Directional Words & Spatial Concepts | Learning Song for Kids | Jack Hartmann (youtube.com)

Here We Go | Directions Song for Kids | Jack Hartmann Positional Words |Spatial Awareness (youtube.com)

Learning with Yaya-Spatial Concepts (Song) (youtube.com)

These engaging, playful activities ensure that toddlers enjoy while mastering the essential skill of following directions.

Take Away Tips:

• Begin with Basic Tasks: Start with simple tasks that are age-appropriate and easy for toddlers to understand and complete. For example, picking up toys, washing hands, or putting on shoes.
• Break Down Instructions: Use clear, simple instructions and break tasks down into smaller, manageable steps. Demonstrate each step and allow the child to imitate you.
• Be Patient: Understand that learning new skills takes time. Be patient and give toddlers plenty of opportunities to practice without pressure. Celebrate their efforts, even if the results aren’t perfect.
• Praise and Encouragement: Use positive reinforcement to motivate toddlers. Praise their efforts and accomplishments, no matter how small. Encouragement boosts their confidence and makes them more willing to try new tasks.
• Turn Tasks into Games: Make learning fun by turning tasks into games. For example, have a race to see who can put on their shoes the fastest or create a treasure hunt for tidying up toys.
• Use Songs and Rhymes: Incorporate songs and rhymes to make learning more enjoyable. For example, sing a song about washing hands or putting on a coat.
• Child-Friendly Tools: Provide child-sized tools and equipment to make tasks easier for toddlers. For example, use safety scissors, small utensils, and step stools to help them reach sinks and counters.
• Safe and Accessible Space: Create a safe and accessible environment where toddlers can practice their skills. Arrange their space so that they can easily reach their toys, clothes, and other items they need.
• Model the Behavior: Children learn by watching adults. Model the behavior you want to teach by demonstrating tasks and explaining what you’re doing. Toddlers are more likely to mimic your actions.
• Repetition is Key: Repetition helps toddlers learn and retain new skills. Allow them to practice tasks regularly and integrate them into their daily routines.
• Step Back and Observe: Allow toddlers to try tasks on their own before stepping in to help. Offer guidance and support, but encourage them to solve problems and complete tasks independently.
• Respect Individual Differences: Every child learns at their own pace. Respect individual differences and avoid comparing your toddler to others. Focus on their unique progress and celebrate their achievements.
• Monitor Their Readiness: Pay attention to your toddler’s readiness for new tasks. Introduce new skills gradually and be mindful of their developmental stage and abilities.

By following these tips, caregivers can create a positive and supportive environment that encourages toddlers to develop essential life skills. The key is to make learning fun, be patient, and celebrate each small step toward independence.