At one year, your toddler can do a lot more than he/she could just a couple of months ago. They are little sponges learning and taking in something new every second and quickly gaining new abilities. Toys can be tricky at this age because they can outgrow them as they enter these new stages.
This list contains toys that I have tested with my own children, and toys that they have grown with and still love. Make sure you send it to your family and friends too!
Best Gifts for 1 Year Old Baby/Toddler
(This list contains affiliate links for your convenience. This means at no cost to you, if you make a purchase using one of these links, I may earn a commission).
I first tried this meal when getting prepped for Rosemary to be born. I wanted to have lots of dinners freezer ready so that I didn’t have to make dinner for awhile after she was born. It was sooo good and such a comfort meal that I knew I wanted to make it again when we started getting into colder weather. Below is my adaptation of this recipe – I just tweaked a couple things to my preference. Mainly, I didn’t think it needed as much ham or cheese as the original recipe called for. This really does make a great freezer meal and the directions are pretty much to layer the ingredients in a bag instead of the slow cooker and freeze, but you can get more in depth directions on her site.
Melt the butter and combine it with the cream of chicken soup and milk to make a ‘soup’
Cut the chicken into cubes and place it at the bottom of the slow cooker.
Pour half of the soup mixture over the chicken.
Cut the ham into bite sized pieces and spread half of it over the chicken.
Sprinkle half the cheese on top.
Add half of the stuffing on top.
Layer the remaining ham, cheese, and stuffing on top.
Cook on low for 4 hours.
It’s that easy!! And it’s super delicious too. I have paired this with asparagus, broccoli, and most recently carrots & snap peas. I would say any vegetable would make a great side dish to this.
My toddler and preschooler helped me make some fun little treats to get into the Halloween spirit. These Halloween treats are suppper easy to make and turned out pretty good!
Halloween fun!! My kids are sooo excited for dressing up and trick or treating, but of course we’ve gotta throw some learning fun in there too. Here are some books we like for Halloween: Little Boo – Stephen Wunderli; We’re Going on a Ghost Hunt – Susan Pearson; Pumpkin Jack – Will Hubbell; The I’m Not Scared Book – Todd Parr; Dem Bones – Bob Barner; Where’s My Mummy – Carolyn Crimi; Spooky Pookie – Sandra Boynton
In addition to this lesson plan, here are some things that you can do with your Halloween candy. I also have several craft and activity ideas, here, here, here, and here.
Comprehension Questions: What were the names of the boy and the man in this story? Who did Samuel think was calling him? What did Eli tell Samuel to do? Who was calling Samuel?
Listening Walk – A few weeks ago when we did the 5 Senses unit, we did a listening walk. You could do that again or what I’m going to do is put the kids in the stroller and blindfold them (or just put the shade up and put a blanket over so that they can’t see) and have them tell me what they hear. We’ll probably do that walking up the street and then let them see again on the way back. I definitely don’t want to block their sight for too long. If it’s not nice out you could always just have them put their heads down at the table and you can make sounds or play sounds and have them guess what sound it is.
Secret Message – I wrote out a phrase (I can hear God too) and then wrote a random letter in between each letter of the phrase. Then I put blanks (like hangman) to represent the letters and words in my phrase. Then I will have my daughter cross out every other letter and put the remaining letters on the line to reveal a message. For example, IGCEAJNLHWESATRHGPOFDUTIOQO would be – I can hear God too.
Act out H words – Have your child act out Halloween things that start with H sound like: howl like a wolf, act scared from a haunted house, pu on a witch hat, go on a hayride, make a hocus pocus spell etc..
Ghost Knock Down – draw ghost faces on clear plastic cups and have child stack in a 4,3,2,1 pyramid. Talk about how many pyramids you would need to make 100. Then you could use a ball or small decorative pumpkin to go bowling and knock it down. They can do it as many times as they would like. For the younger child I will just have her count the cups.
Save the spiders – add play spiders to a muffin tin then put masking tape over top of the tin opening. Have your child practice their cutting skills to cut the tape then use tweezers to free the spiders. You can see my daughter demonstrating this activity with bears at the end of this video
Halloween Graphing – Put Halloween erasers (or other Halloween items like spider rings) into a sensory bin and have the child pull them out and graph them on a sheet of paper
Halloween roll & cover – Even though our number of the week is 8, I am going to do the 1-6 sheet with my 2 year old because she is still a very new 2.. if you have a more advanced child you could do the up to 12 roll and cover instead.
Playdough spiders and monsters – Get out your playdough and use a sectioned tray (like this one) to hold things to make spiders and monsters (like googly eyes, pipe cleaners, pretzel sticks, spider rings , Halloween erasers, etc..)
Monster potions – in small clear plastic cups, add some eyes and pipe cleaner mouths to make monster cups. Add a few drops of different colored food coloring in each followed by some baking soda. Get a separate cup filled with vinegar and let the child use a dropper to add it to the cups. Can talk about the reaction of baking soda and vinegar then let them play!
Water density – Experiment with water density using Halloween colored liquids (vegetable oil, syrup, dye water) and talk about what’s happening. Then you can add Halloween trinkets (spider, eye ball etc..) do see which liquid they go to. To finish off the experiment, drop in an Alka-Seltzer tablet and watch the show!
Use candy corn or candy pumpkins and toothpicks to build structures
Ghost Knock Down – draw ghost faces on 10 clear plastic cups and write #’s 0-9 on the top. Have child sequence and stack them in a pyramid. Use a small pumpkin or ball to go bowling and knock it down. Repeat as many times as they want.
Save the Spiders – add play spiders to a muffin tin then put masking tape over the opening. Have your child cut the tape and use tweezers to free the spiders. You can see this activity in action with bears at the end of this video
Halloween Facts – Halloween is on October 31st (find it on the calendar). The colors of Halloween are orange and black. It originated in the Celtic lands – Ireland & Scotland (find them on the map). The Halloween celebration goes back over 2,000 years. Originally, jack-o-lanterns were carved from turnips and potatoes. Illinois has the most pumpkins of all the states (find it on a map).
OTHER ACTIVITY IDEAS
Cotton Ball Ghost – Hang a large piece of butchers paper on the wall and draw the outline of a big ghost with eyes and a mouth. Have child use glue and cotton balls to fill in the ghost. You can also use a cut out ghost like we did in this video.
Marble paint mummy – cut out a mummy body on black paper, tape it inside a box and drop on a few globs of white paint. Have the child drop in some marbles and shake the box from side to side to create white lines all over the mummy. After the paint dries add 2 yellow dot stickers for eyes and draw a black dot in the center. If you haven’t seen marble painting before, we did it at Easter here
Trick or Treat Graph – after trick or treating separate and graph the candy you got
Colored Pasta Sensory Bin – color noodles and bake for 20 min so that the color doesn’t transfer then use it as the base of a Halloween sensory bin. You can see ours from last year here
Jello Excavation – Make 2 packets of orang jello and dump on a tray or in a bin. Add the Halloween stuff then put in the fridge until ready. Use tweezers, scoops etc.. to get all the items out.
SpiderWeb Obstacle Course – Using streamers or twine, make a ‘web’ all over a room and have the child try to climb through without getting stuck
After just having fire week last week, I thought that it would be a good time to talk about other disasters that can happen too. This time, focusing on natural disasters like tornados, hurricanes & volcanos. And with those air, land & water fits right in. My kids love talking about different disasters.. I don’t know why, they are just mesmerized by them and can ask a zillion questions about them. This unit is also a great way to talk about the idea of geography, maps & globes.
As with every lesson, we of course pair the materials listed with tons of books from the library, but I also have the Magic School Bus: Inside the Earth which I love. To note, you’ll see LHL next to a couple of items without a link. That’s because some of this lesson comes from a Little Hands Learn free unit study. I cannot share the printables here, but you can get them free if you enroll if you are interested.
I spy Game – Looking around the room say I spy something that starts with the letter ‘mmmm’ and have the child guess items that start with m. Do this for review letters.
Nature walk – Bring 3 small jars and go for a walk to collect air, water & land. You can just have them wave the jar around to collect air. Then you can match each jar to the 3 part cards that they go with
Gemstones & Minerals – I got this to be able to look at the different gemstones and minerals and we will also look up where they come from on a map. This is another good resource to use with this activity.
Tornado Game – I will use letter flashcards and sight word cards for this and some tape the tornados to the back of some so that they don’t know which are which. My 2 girls will be 1 man teams and the 2 year old will have the single letters and a mama helper, while the 4 year old will have the sight words. We will draw a basic house that I will help them with.
Natural Disaster Café – I am going to make a little menu for myself and put numbers next to each one (1-7 for my 2 year old, any number up to 100 for my 4 year old). I will then read them the menu and they can pick something they want to make. But, before they do, they have to do the number activity. For my 2 year old it will be counting or picking the correct number flashcard from a pile, and for my 4 year old, she will have to write the number on the board, or build the number with math beads. Once they do the math activity they can make the item in the play kitchen and deliver it to the customer aka me or sister or dad. The menu will be something like… disaster soup – 2/14 (so my 2 year old would count 2 objects with me and my 4 year old will write or build the number 14). Other menu ideas: Lava lasagna, Tornado Pasta, Earthquake Chicken Tenders etc…
Find #7 – I will put a 7 magnet in a bin with several letter magnets. I will have my daughter search through the bin to find the 7. Repeat until child looses interest.
Graph natural disasters – I will have my daughter make a graph based on these numbers that I found in an online search – average numbers per year (I don’t really care if these are 100% accurate, you can do more research if you do)– tsunamis: 2, hurricanes: 12, volcanos: 60, tornados: 1000. The graph doesn’t have to be completely accurate, but I just want her to see the comparison in quantities.
Other Natural Disaster Preschool Activity Ideas
Monopoly Earthquake – Get to large cloths (or paper) and overlap them a little bit. Cover them lightly with soil, and top with monopoly houses to make a town. Then pull apart the cloths and watch the houses fall in the fault line.
Graham Cracker Quake – Lay 2 halves of graham cracker on a pile of red frosting. Push them back and forth to show what happens – fault line & mountains.
National Fire Safety week is the first week of October here, so we are doing a fire safety preschool theme. I like to pair it up here because some of the fire stations near us hold open houses so it’s fun to do that when we are learning all about fire safety.
Along with getting lots of books from the library about fire, firemen & fire themed stories, here is what we will be doing in preschool.
Science of baking – bake treat to deliver to firehouse
Comprehension Questions:
What was Gideon afraid of?
What did the angel tell Gideon?
Did Gideon think he was strong and brave?
Find & Read words: Write some CVC or sight words on index cards (or cut pieces of paper) and hide them around the room. Turn off the light and have child use a flashlight to find the cards. Then have them read what it says. This is like a firefighter in a dark building. (Adapted from an idea at stayathomeeducator.com)
Fire obstacle course – This activitiy is dramatic play and pretending. Make an obstacle course and pretend something at the end is on fire. Call the firefighter (your child) who can dress up as a firefighter and practice crawling through the obstacle course to get to the fire and pretend to put the big fire out at the end.
Fire safety plan – where do you go? What do you do? Do you wait for other people? Designate a meeting place. “Don’t hide, go outside!”. You can make a map with this and talk about cardinal directions as well.
Good fire v bad fire – Discuss the differences between good fires (campfires, bbq, stove, candles, etc..) and bad fires – depends on the type of fire and what its effects are.
Space is so vast, that I decided to split it up into 2 preschool themes focusing on different aspects of space. The first being a space unit with emphasis on stars, asteroids, comets, astronauts etc.. basically anything that is not the planets & sun. The second, this unit, focusing specifically on the planets in our solar system.
As always, these are the activities that we are doing, and I hope that it saves you some time searching the internet for ideas.
Comprehension Questions: What does the word “commandments” mean?
Why did God give us rules? (To help the people learn how to obey God, be happy, and to know how to treat other people)
What are some of the rules that you have to follow?
Why do you have rules?
Earths Orbit in Action – Outline a path representing Earth’s orbit on the ground. Then acting as the sun, the child can shine a flashlight on you (who is the Earth) as you rotate and orbit the sun. You can reverse the role play as well.
