Activities to Stimulate Toddler Development

Playing with your child is the best way to encourage her cognitive development. Provide lots of positive reinforcement for every success, and patience and understanding for any mistakes. When you see that she is getting frustrated when not able to solve a problem, offer to assist or demonstrate an alternate approach to the problem and work through it together. Help, but do not do it for her; the more she does on her own, the more she will learn.

Here are some fun activities for you to enjoy together.

Promote memory skills

• Watch videos of family events or look at photographs to recognize familiar faces.
• Introduce the ABCs: try a new letter every week. Cut out each letter or make them out of food shapes.
• Try guiding her hand to draw each letter with finger paint

Reading aloud every day

• Even if you only read for 5 or 10 minutes, your child will learn words by hearing you say them.
• Make it an interactive experience - name objects in the books and let her point to them.

Explain things as they're happening

• Make it a conversation, and listen actively when she talks.
• Play peek-a-boo. She truly believes she's invisible when she holds her hands over her eyes.

Ask her to find things

• You'll be surprised how much she knows.

Expand on her word

• If she says "car," make it into a sentence.

Put faces to voices to stimulate memory

• When friends and family call on the phone, put pictures near the phone so she can see who's talking to her.

Sing

• Introduce nursery rhymes, finger plays and counting rhymes.
• Listen to recordings.

Use the mirror

• Let him make faces and name his body parts.

Play with blocks to explore cause-and-effect

Introduce new environments

• New playgrounds, the grocery store or the children's room at the library are all exciting places to explore.

Play with writing

• Experiment with chunky crayons.
• Help her colour on paper with them, and learn NOT to eat them.

Give her the opportunity to make appropriate choices

• Let her choose her shirt or what kind of fruit she would like to eat.

Why is Nutrition Important?

Nutrition helps support growth and development. Encourage your child’s success with a balanced diet of nutrient-rich foods.