Toddler Activities - Quick & Easy activities that encourage independent play

I’m sure we’ve all spent our fair share of time on Pinterest, scouring through millions of different blog posts with ideas for keeping toddlers entertained…and if you’re anything like me you’ll also be looking for activities that you don’t actually have to be 100% involved in because #thatbusymomlife.

Today I’m sharing some of my favourite activities that encourage independent play, which I truly believe is the best sort of play your little one can do (and that’s not just because it might give mom 5 minutes to actually drink a hot cup of coffee for once). What often happens with us parents, is we end up ‘playing for’ our children, showing them how toys should be played with, and how things work, thereby taking away all the creative fun and self teaching that automatically happens when you leave a child to figure out a toy/activity for themselves. I find this to especially be the case with a puzzle…I found it SO hard not to get involved when I first gave Everly a puzzle, and I found it even harder to step back and not tell her she was placing the pieces in the wrong places. It’s such a good skill for us to learn as parents, I’d say almost as important as the skill of independent play that we want our kids to learn and enjoy.

Independent play doesn’t always come naturally to every child, and is a learned behaviour that some kids take to almost instantly, and others need more help along the way. So, to help you, here are some of our favourite activities that lend themselves really well to independent play:

1. Play Dough!

We have tried all sorts of brands (including homemade variations) of playdough, and the one i recommend highly is the Giotto be-bè play dough (you can find it on Takealot) as it’s got the nicest consistency, and doesn’t have any weird smell. It’s definitely pricier than most of the other brands, but I think the quality is 100% worth it. I bought Everly a little PlayDoh tool set a while ago, and she just loves all the little bits and pieces, and uses them with all the play dough she owns. She also uses the knife as a spoon when making tea ;)

2. Chalk

This has got to be one of the best activities I’ve set up for Everly. As you can see from these photos, she’s grown up a lot since I took them, but she still plays with her chalk all the time. She has just as much fun with a wet cloth, wiping & cleaning the boards, as she does actually drawing. I bought these magnetic chalk boards from the Crazy Store, and then use a little plastic bucket to store her chalk and eraser in.

The best part about chalk…it can easily be wiped off of surfaces, so if you have a toddler who is a bit too spirited when it comes to the walls in the house, chalk is a dream to clean up. In fact, I actually only had chalk in the house for Everly to draw with right up until she was about 18 months old.

3. Water Play

There are MILLIONS of different variations of water play, but Everly is pretty content with a bucket of water, a brush, and a cloth. Then I sometimes add some hand soap for bubbles, and often chuck in random bits and pieces that float/sink that she has fun ‘painting’ and cleaning. This activity is great for the warmer weather. Just make sure to lather on sunscreen and pop a hat on during the hottest times of the day.

I also bought a pack of plastic animals from the Crazy Store, which she has fun playing in the dirt with them and then cleaning them in the water and bubbles.

When in doubt, go outside.

Kids don’t actually need any toys or planned activities to have fun. It might take a bit longer if your toddler is used to mommy or daddy always being around to play with, but the more opportunities you give them to be bored, the quicker they will learn to make up their own games and fun.

I have always left Everly to her own devices (always making sure she is in a safe space to explore and that I am close enough to hear her if she get’s into any trouble) and more so now that she has a little brother that needs me a lot more right now. I find that when I’m not hovering around (or in sight of her) I can literally see her brain clogs whirring as she potters around the garden planning her next adventure. The moment she sees me is when suddenly ‘Mommmm’ and it’s like she can’t play without me. But, when I’m not around (I often watch her from a window so make sure she’s happy and safe) it’s just her and her imagination, and it’s the most amazing thing to watch.

In our home, there are always a few ‘toys’ in reach wherever she is. And I say ‘toys’ because most of the things aren’t your usual toys but rather household items she likes playing with.

For when she’s outside, she can always help herself to her wooden trolley, her gardening tools and a bucket with plastic animals, lids & cups as well as a box of Duplo. We are still working on the whole ‘pack away when you’re finished’ rule, but having less junk lying around means she has to work a little harder to make up her own games and activities.

I keep the Duplo in a big plastic container, and then dump out the contents onto a mat (our favourite play mat is this gorgeous big Love Baby one I won in a giveaway on Instagram last year. It’s HUGE and fits both kids and their toys, but being so big it is a bit of a pain to store. So I sort of fold it & shove it onto the bottom shelf of an old metal gardening set of shelves we use to also keep our boots on.

Inside the house, she has a shelf in her room with her books, and then another shelf with wooden toys always on display. She can take these out to play whenever she wants to, but she doesn’t generally take them out of her room (yay for having less things to pack away around the house). When thinking about her toddler room (this came about when we moved her from her cot into a toddler bed…click here to read the full post) I really liked the Montessori approach of having things open for the toddler to be able to explore and help themselves to. This can be very scary for the parent, because one does assume this means your toddler will be up in the middle of the night playing with all their toys, just because they can, but we have yet to have that problem. When she wakes up early, she is now able to entertain herself by reading books or playing, and isn’t that the goal? Well, not the waking up early part, but the part about them being able to entertain themselves.

I’ll write a whole post on her full room set up after we converted her cot into a bed, but here are a few photos so you can see her toy set up. Now that she is in an actual bed (we converted her cot into a toddler bed at 16 months…just before Aaron was born) and then she moved into an actual bed (the one you can see here in the photo above) at about 20 months. Once she had gotten used to the toddler bed, the transition to the big bed was really quick and easy. Some people go straight to a big bed from a cot, but as I had bought a cot that converted into a toddler bed, I wanted to at least get a little use of it before her brother needed it as a cot.

In the lounge, I have just set up a little space for her with one or two wooden toys, her table and chairs, and her playdough. I’ll share some photos of this Montessori inspired space soon.

So there you have it, a few ideas of activities that encourage independent play. I hope you enjoyed this post and found it useful, let me know in the comments below if there are any activities your little ones enjoy doing by themselves.