You might be familiar with the physical health needs of your 12-month old. You know how to change their diaper so they don’t get a rash, how to properly buckle their seat belt, and which snacks are their favorite. But how can you best support their learning and ensure they are developing healthily cognitively, physically, and linguistically? Try these simple at-home learning activities to help your little one get the skills they need.
Language & Speech
Language & Speech skills are hugely important for young toddlers, and the skills involved often encompass much more than parents realize. In order to speak and understand speech, children need to know how a word sounds, understand its meaning, be able to replicate the same sounds with their own mouth, understand the back-and-forth nature of conversation, and be able to synthesize auditory input, determine the meaning, decide on their own response, and speak it back. It’s a lot for a little brain to handle! You can make it easier on them by introducing these simple, fun activities that will build each of those skills to mastery.
1. Reading books
The absolute best thing you can do for your child’s emerging language skills is to read lots of books together! Children should both have time to read with an adult and spend time exploring books independently, so make sure that plenty of books are within their easy reach in their usual play space. Make sure they’re board books or another sturdy material so they don’t get torn to bits!
When reading together, incorporate ways that your child can interact with the reading experience. Ask them to turn the page, or identify what’s happening in the book’s illustrations. For more verbally capable children, you could ask them to interpret the feelings or actions of the characters in the book.
2. Singing songs
Songs are a great way to introduce vocabulary and speech into your child’s mind in a way that will be easy for them to remember and repeat. Songs that have motions to go along with them, like Wheels on the Bus, Itsy Bitsy Spider, and Five
Finger Family are all great for also helping them connect the meaning with the word and improve their comprehension.
3. Puppets and stuffed animals
Using puppets and stuffed animals with your child is great for building social understanding and gaining an understanding of the back-and-forth nature of communication. Having pretend conversations with a favorite puppet or pretending a stuffed bear is eating a snack is fantastic practice for real-life conversations and social situations and gets young kids excited to try and communicate.
4. Introduce baby sign language
If you haven’t already, 12 months is a fantastic time to introduce baby signs. Start with a few simple signs, like “more,” “all done,” and “milk,” and model the sign every time you use the word with your child. Once they seem familiar with the sign, you can try and help them copy the sign by moving their hands in the right position for them.
Sign language is fantastic for helping children practice communicating before they have the physical ability or vocabulary to be speaking their words. It especially helps with children who become frustrated with their inability to communicate their needs. As an added bonus, it also is great for emerging fine motor skills!
5. Ask questions
Even if your child can’t communicate perfectly yet, talking to them as though they can respond and asking them questions can hugely improve their communication skills. This gives them a chance to think through the question and their feelings, even if they aren’t capable of providing a detailed response.
It also helps to introduce to them some conversational structure and social awareness, so that your little one doesn’t just have a growing vocabulary but robust social skills as they grow into their speech.
6. Label their emotions
When children have extreme emotion, they have a difficult time expressing their feelings. If your little one is a major tantrummer or screamer, that’s why! Help them develop their language and social-emotional skills by helping them to label how they’re feeling.
This can look very different for each child, but a good model of a response would be “I can see that you’re mad that you don’t have any more milk. Would you like to ask for more?” Acknowledging and naming their emotion while explaining why they might feel that way is helpful because it helps them develop the emotional language they need to express themselves. Following up with offering a solution helps them understand how to solve problems and ask for help when needed, building their bond with their parents and their problem solving skills.
Gross Motor Skills
Moving, jumping, running, skipping – building strength in large muscle groups and learning to coordinate them is a big job, and having underdeveloped gross motor skills can have an impact on related areas of learning, too. Try using some of these exciting, action-packed gross motor activities to build strength, get some exercise, and have fun!
1. Kicking
To be able to effectively kick a ball, a lot of gross motor skills need to be in place. The balance to stand on one foot, the strength of the leg and foot, and the coordination of the feet with visual information are all very challenging for a young toddler.
To introduce kicking as a gross motor coordination skill, start with a large, light ball, like an inflatable plastic ball or a lightweight soccer ball. To start, simply model kicking the ball and encourage your child to try and copy you. If your child is still uncertain about their standing and walking skills, they can try to kick the ball while holding onto a surface for balance or kicking it from a sitting position.
As their skills begin to emerge, you can try to give them a target, like a soccer net, to improve their coordination and challenge them further.
2. Playing catch
Getting a chance to play catch with a child is a treasured moment that every parent looks forward to! And even though your little one can’t quite catch a baseball in a mitt just yet, you can start building the gross motor coordination skills required.
To start with, try simply rolling a ball back and forth with your child on the floor. Just being able to push the ball so it rolls in the desired direction and with enough force to reach its destination can be a great gross motor coordination activity for a young toddler. Once they have mastered rolling the ball on the floor, you can move on to throwing the ball back and forth.
Start with gentle, underhand tosses made from a short distance to help your child get the hang of catching and throwing, then you can start making the distance between you two farther and farther as they grow more comfortable.
3. Climbing
Little ones are natural climbers, and finding safe places for them to climb is critical for their gross motor coordination. Being able to coordinate arm and leg movements while pulling one’s own weight upwards and keeping balance is quite a feat, and it is a fantastic source of exercise for little ones!
Make sure to visit plenty of toddler-appropriate playgrounds with your little one so they get regular access to this activity. If you have the space, you could look at finding an indoor low climber for toddlers to put in their regular play space so they can climb any time they want!
4. Riding toys
12 month olds may not yet be ready to be riding a bicycle, but that doesn’t mean they can’t have a sweet ride! A simple push riding toy is a great way to build gross motor strength in the legs and feet, practice coordinating movement between both legs, and a great source of exercise. It’s also a great way to build the skills needed to ride a two-wheel bicycle when they’re ready in a few years!
Fine Motor Skills
Being able to use fine motor abilities well is a challenge, and can take a lot of time and practice for little ones to perfect. Things like writing, using scissors, or lacing a shoe feel like second nature to adults, but to young children those tasks seem
impossible, and gaining enough strength and control in the small muscles of the hands and fingers can be a real challenge. Try using some of these fun activities to help your little one turn into a fine motor master in no time!
1. Pipettes
Pipettes, also called liquid droppers, are simple tools used to move small amounts of water. They’re used by pinching and releasing the top bulb of a flexible plastic tube to suck up and release liquid. This is a favored activity of young children because of its exciting sensory applications with various liquids.
Young toddlers can find the coordination of pipettes challenging. Fortunately, many toy stores or educational supply stores offer pipettes made larger with toddler-friendly bulbs that are easier for little hands to manipulate.
Pipettes are great for a variety of activities. You can use pipettes to splash watercolor paint onto paper to make a beautiful piece of art, or use it to apply colored vinegar to baking soda as a fun art project. Whatever you use them for, they’ll be sure to build amazing fine motor skills for your toddler!
2. Stickers
Stickers are a great source of fine motor practice for little fingers! The small coordinated movements needed to remove a sticker from a sheet are actually quite a challenge, but the reward of having a sticker is more than enough motivation to focus on the task for most young toddlers.
To start with, using puffy stickers or oversized stickers can help younger toddlers gain the basic skills needed to peel the stickers off the sheet, then smaller and more difficult stickers can be introduced over time. Stickers also come in a huge variety of sizes and styles, so you can customize this exciting learning activity to your child’s own special interests.
3. Lacing/threading
Lacing or threading is massively popular, and part of its appeal is its simplicity. Lacing can be done with lacing cards or blocks, which are wooden or cardstock cutouts of various pictures with holes along the edge. Children can then take a wooden blunt “needle” and “sew” along the
4. Coloring
Coloring may seem like a simple activity to fill a child’s time, but it is actually a critical learning activity. Holding a crayon, marker, or colored pencil is a fantastic way to practice for writing with a pen or pencil in a few years.
While at 12 months your little one likely won’t be doing much other than scribbling with their chosen coloring implement, they’re still building important fine motor coordination skills and strengthening the tiny muscles in their hands and fingers that will become important for their writing ability.
Cognitive Skills
Cognitive skills are what most people would associate with “traditional” learning skills – counting, sorting, building, and critical thinking all fall under the category of Cognitive skills. Don’t be fooled, though, cognitive learning can be filled with fun and is often the very favorite of young toddlers! Try these activities and see how simple and fun it can be to learn cognitive skills.
1. Shape sorting
Shape sorting activities are a fantastic way for your little one to begin categorizing, shape recognition, counting, and critical thinking. You can purchase a shape sorting activity at any toy store, or you can simply make one at home with paper and markers!
Introduce the shape sorting activity to your child gently at first, discussing the different shapes and showing them how to tell them apart. Then you can start to show them how the shapes can match together as they begin to show some familiarity.
Your little one may not respond by matching the shapes together right away, but that’s okay! Just sitting down to play with an adult and familiarizing with the different shapes is helping them adopt the same cognitive skills.
2. Color matching
Color matching, much like shape sorting, is great for learning about classification and finding the similarities and differences in given objects. Color matching is fantastic because there are so many ways you can apply it to an activity.
Color matching can be putting flashcards together, but it can also be grouping toys based on their color, or playing an I Spy game of looking around the room to find a given color. It can be done with your child’s favorite toy, food, or art activity.
3. Block building/stacking
Building and stacking with blocks and other building toys can be hugely beneficial for young children. Understanding structure, balance, symmetry, and gravity are great ways to start building early critical thinking and analysis skills. There are many, many incredible building toys for children to play with, such as magnetic tiles, bristle builders, and interlocking construction pieces. However, don’t underestimate the power of simple wooden blocks!
Young toddlers may need something of an introduction to the idea of building for structure or stacking with some adult assistance and modeling. However, don’t impose too many prescriptive ideas on your little one about how they should be building with their toys. After all, following their imagination and curiosity is how they learn best!
4. Musical instruments
Playing with musical instruments may seem like more of an enrichment activity, with plenty of opportunity for fun but very little potential as an academic activity. However, playing with musical instruments is a fantastic cognitive learning opportunity for young toddlers.
A critical cognitive skill for young toddlers is an understanding of cause and effect, and being able to predict the result of a given action. Musical instruments are a wonderful chance to experiment with cause and effect by playing with the different effects a toddler can have by hitting a drum hard or soft, pressing different keys of a piano, or shaking a tambourine gently or firmly. The music they make is a wonderful reinforcement of this curiosity, and leads to hours of endless learning and fun!
5. Cooking projects
Cooking with your child is a great way to introduce cognitive skills. Even children as young as 12 months can participate in a cooking project with their parents! Cooking introduces measurement and a knowledge of how food is made, while also being an incredible source of sensory enrichment. Cooking also involves following a detailed list of instructions, so children can begin learning to carefully listen and retain multistep directions.
Of course, be careful with any projects that involve the stove or oven! Starting out with a simple no-bake recipe or just helping to plate up some fruit and crackers may be a good idea for little ones with wandering hands to help keep them safe.
Sensory Skills
Sensory activities are often hard for adults to understand the educational value of. After all, splashing in some water or digging in sand doesn’t appear at first to have any special learning element to it. However, sensory activities are critical for developing the neural pathways that children use to understand their sensory experiences. Get ready to get messy with these fun hands-on sensory activities!
1. Digging and scooping
One of the most beautiful things about sensory play is just how many variations you can create. The most basic form of a sensory activity is a simple “digging and scooping” activity. To start, you’ll want a large waterproof basin in a location where a bit of spillage won’t harm much. If you have a sensory table with a built-in basin, that works great, but a simple plastic storage bin set on a table will also work just fine.
You can fill the basin with just about anything you want. Common selections include water and sand, but you can also use dirt, clay, shaving cream, soap bubbles, slime, hair gel, kinetic sand, shredded paper, pebbles… there’s no wrong answer!
Once your material is in the basin, add a few simple tools to the basin. Shovels, cups, spoons, and bowls are great to start, though you can also add water wheels, sponges, paintbrushes, sandcastle molds, toothbrushes, or pipettes. Just about anything that will offer your child a way to play with the material in a new way is a great addition to the table!
And just like that, you have a fantastic sensory activity that your child will be amused by for hours. You can even create specially themed sensory tables for different holidays or special interests your child might have! If you have a toddler who loves construction and vehicles, you might make a sensory bin full of dirt and rocks with small toy construction vehicles so they can drive them over the dirt and load them up with rocks and dirt. If your child loves fish, you can make a water and bubble sensory bin full of toy fish, play fishing poles, and toy boats. The opportunities are endless, and the learning is invaluable!
2. Mixing materials
Mixing materials is a great way to enhance sensory activities. For this one you will need two separate basins with two separate materials inside. Think about different materials that may create an interesting result when combined. Combining paint with hair gel could create an interesting, sticky slime, while mixing water with shredded paper can create soggy paste that’s fun to squish and rip.
Mixing materials is great because it also teaches children about the physical properties of material and cause/effect, building cognitive skills at the same time!
3. Adding sensory play to other favored activities
The versatility of sensory play means that it can also be applied to other activities. If your little one loves their hot wheels cars, you can build a sensory activity around driving hot wheels cars through clay. If their favorite activity is drawing, you can introduce finger painting into their art routine to add some sensory engagement to their arts and crafts time.
4. Play dough
Play dough is a great on-the-go, space-conscious option for sensory play. Play dough’s consistency makes it great for building or creating structures for some cognitive learning, or can be manipulated with the hands and experimented with for some simple sensory play. You can add tools, cookie cutters, and utensils to further enrich the learning experience.
You can also make your own play dough at home! Try a simple recipe that allows you to have your child assist in putting the ingredients together and rolling out their own dough.
5. Sensory bottles
Sensory bottles are another opportunity for a lot of customization for your needs and your child’s interests. Sensory bottles are made by simply taking an empty water or soda bottle and filling it with a variety of materials. To create a fun lava lamp effect, combine oil, water, and food coloring into the bottle to create a fun, hypnotic effect in the liquid.
Sensory bottles can be enhanced with glitter, small toys, buttons, rocks, or beads. Anything that can withstand being submerged in water that can fit in the bottle will work! Much like sensory bins, sensory bottles can be themed around a given special interest or activity. You can make a beach-themed bottle with sand, water, blue food coloring, and seashells. You could create a space-themed bottle with black food dye, silver glitter, and little toy planets, aliens, and astronauts.
Sensory bottles are great calm-down activities for children who are upset, or just a nice quiet activity for some sensory enrichment. Shaking and moving the bottle creates a fun whirlwind of all the items inside, and has a very soothing effect on little ones who are drawn in by its hypnotic movements.