Easy Toddler Activities to do at Home (Our Pandemic Story)

When the world shut down, we spent a lot of time at home with our toddler. From a combination of self-experimentation, YouTube videos, and inspiration from her Montessori schooling, we’ve pulled together a list of activities that are great for toddlers’ development while being easy to do at home. They not only kept our then two-year-old busy and happy, but also helped her develop new skills right under our roof.

Why Bother?

Ditching the Screens for Real-Life Skills

During lockdown, it was tempting to hand our restless toddler the tablet. However, I learned that increasing screen time doesn’t necessarily correlate with an enriched mind, especially when one is stuck at home endlessly. Montessori activities became our go-to screen-free alternatives. One pivotal aspect of Montessori education is that children learn practical skills through hands-on involvement, helping them become well-rounded and adaptive learners. Instead of passive screen watching, our child was pouring water, matching socks, and chopping bananas (with supervision!) – toddler activities at home that kept her busy and learning at the same time.

Skill Development in Disguise

Each Montessori-inspired activity targets some developmental sweet spot. Pouring water from one cup to another looks like messy play, but it’s secretly boosting fine motor control, hand-eye coordination, and concentration. Little memory games with picture cards aren’t just cute – they’re enhancing language and vocabulary by helping our toddler connect words with objects and concepts. I loved that these activities had practical value: the skills she practiced (like buttoning or scooping) showed up in everyday life. If we had reverted to hours on hours and days on days of just tablet time, her grip strength and tactile skills could have suffered. 

Portable and Adaptable

Another perk was how adaptable these Montessori-style games were. We could do them anywhere with whatever we had on hand. Stuck in a hotel room, visiting family? We played a DIY memory game with a pack of cards. Waiting at the doctor’s office? We let her “help” sort items in my purse.

(Also check out our recommendations for engaging kids at restaurants without technology here.) 

Montessori activities taught us that we don’t need fancy toys to amaze our toddler – she was thrilled just to participate in everyday tasks. In fact, Montessori philosophy emphasizes that children are naturally curious and capable of self-directed learning through ordinary activities. 

Below are five Montessori-inspired activity categories we tried, along with examples and some parent-to-parent tips from our pandemic journey.

1. Memory Games to Teach Words

Being stuck at home gave us the perfect excuse to make our own little memory games – no special kit needed. We started with simple matching games using things we already had (you can even “laminate” your cards with tape). These kinds of matching and memory games are fantastic for building vocabulary. Research shows that games with pictures and words encourage new vocabulary learning and help kids connect words to objects. 

Ideas for Matching Games:

• “Family Faces” - Print out duplicate pictures of your family members, nuclear and extended, and flip them all over facedown. Then, have your child find the matching pairs! 
• “Food Matching” - Print or cut out duplicate pictures of common food items (apples, bananas, oranges, tomatoes, cheese, etc.).
• “Community Helpers” - Print or cut out duplicate pictures of community helpers like firefighters, doctors, teachers, janitors, or sanitation workers. 
• “Animal Friends” - Print or cut out duplicate pictures of your child's favorite animals, as well as new ones to spark continued conversation on these furry friends! 
• “Driving Around” - Print or cut out duplicate pictures of different types of vehicles. Customize it to specific areas of interest, maybe you have a superfan of water, and include a lot of nautical transportation! 

Parent tip: Keep memory games super short and positive. Toddlers may not follow rules perfectly, and that’s okay! If attention wanes, turn it into a silly naming game or hide-and-seek with the cards. The goal at this age isn’t to enforce game rules, but to expose them to new language and let them practice turn-taking. Even a quick 5-minute game can be a great session that supports language development.

*Start with identical cards where the card has both images and names of the images. Then proceed to having a matched set of cards be one for the image and one for the word, as your child progresses.*

2. Water Play to Develop Fine Motor Skills

When you’re home all day with a toddler, water play is pure magic. Something as simple as a bowl of water can keep a two-year-old mesmerized (just put a towel down first!). We set up various water activities that were equal parts fun and skill-building.

Start with two small pitchers and show your child how to pour water from one to the other. Our toddler would concentrate so hard not to spill, and if she dribbled, no big deal, we’d wipe and try again. This kind of pouring play is a classic Montessori practical life activity: it helps improve dexterity and control, refines hand-eye coordination, and teaches real-world skills like pouring drinks. You can even recruit them to help pour water into the coffee maker to brew up a few cups in the morning! 

Another hit: watering plants. Get a tiny watering can and let your littles be in charge of a few houseplants. She loved toddling around giving them a “drink.” It makes them feel so important! And in Montessori fashion, it also gives a lesson in caring for living things.

And we can’t forget bubbles! On a warm day, fill a plastic tub with a couple of inches of water, add a drop of dish soap, and grab a whisk. Sudsy whisking will become an instant favorite. The more they whisk, the more bubbles appear – such a simple activity and great for fine motor skills. 

Parent tip: Embrace the mess (within reason) and keep towels handy. If you’re worried about spills, you can place the water play setup in the bathtub or take it outside. Montessori water activities can also include practical tasks toddlers love, like washing plastic dishes in a sink or giving toy animals a bath.

3. Spoon and Tong Activities for Little Hands

While I recall finding water play immersive for my child, it was tiring to continually clean up. For busy moms, one more mess can sometimes be the straw that breaks the camel's back, so there are plenty of alternative options that are less messy and equally as helpful in developing fine motor skills.

For example, one of our toddler’s favorite Montessori-inspired games was using a spoon or small tongs to transfer objects between containers. We started with easy targets like big pom-poms in a muffin tin, and eventually moved to smaller items like dry pasta and dried beans. These easy toddler activities secretly build the hand strength and precision needed later for things like holding a pencil or buttoning a coat.

At first, use a spoon to scoop cotton balls from one bowl to another. After they get the hang of spooning, introduce toddler-friendly tongs (plastic kitchen tongs or even a big pair of tweezers would do). This simple activity strengthens the small muscles in the hands and fingers and also does wonders for hand-eye coordination because they have to aim and drop objects into a target.

Also, try an ice cube transfer on a hot day. Put a few ice cubes in one bowl and provide a spoon to move them to another bowl. Or after they’re done helping make your daily cup of coffee, have them help scoop the grounds into a jar to compost or feed plants with. 

Parent tip: If you don’t have tongs, no worries – a regular spoon (or even just fingers) works to start. You can use whatever “small stuff” you have: large beads, blocks, cereal O’s, bottle caps. Always supervise closely, of course, due to choking hazards. We made a rule that these items stay on the table during the game. 

4. Clothes and Self-Care Practice

One upside of being home 24/7 was having the time to include our toddler in daily self-care routines. Rather than rushing through getting dressed or doing laundry, we turned these tasks into toddler-friendly activities. A simple one is matching socks. Dump a clean pile of socks on the bed, and make a game of finding the pairs. This activity is great at teaching visual discrimination and care of self, and it even helps develop fine motor skills.

Dressing themselves is a huge deal for toddlers, and we used the slower pandemic days to let her practice clothes skills. Buttoning, zipping, and using hangers all build dexterity and hand strength – the same finger control needed for writing later on. One trick we learned from Montessori resources was to break it into steps: for example, start a button in the hole and let them push it the rest of the way. Or place a jacket on the ground, then have them stick their arms in first, and finally flip it over their head. Alternate zipping it up. 

Another surprisingly fun activity: toddler laundry assistant. Hand your little ones damp washcloths or socks from the washer and have them hang them on a low drying rack (using little clothespins is fantastic bonus fine motor work!). Or start folding a pillowcase or towels and ask them to finish, and eventually, take over on smaller towels or linens. 

5. Helping in the Kitchen

I’ll admit, at first, the idea of a toddler “helping” in the kitchen can have parents envisioning flour explosions and knife accidents. But with a bit of planning, the kitchen can become an amazing classroom for little ones. In Montessori, involving kids in food prep is a big deal – and I see why now. 

Safe slicing practice was one of the first activities we tried. We gave her a kid-safe knife and a very ripe banana and demonstrated how to cut it into pieces. Was it messy? Yes. Did some banana end up squished instead of sliced? Also yes. But she did manage to cut several pieces herself by holding the knife with both hands and pressing down. This simple task was golden for hand strength and coordination. Plus, she got to eat the fruits of her labor – literally. 

We also let her peel an orange (with a little help to start it off). Peeling an orange or banana engages finger muscles and coordination in a big way. Such food prep activities help develop fine motor skills, strengthen finger muscles, and increase concentration, all while fostering independence.

Another beloved task is stirring and mixing. Toddlers love mixing stuff – and they’re actually good at it if you give them the right tools. Measure out ingredients (a math lesson for the future!) and let them stir pancake batter or scramble eggs (with close supervision near the stove). You can also set up a little bowl washing station where littles can wash fruits and veggies. With a small bowl of water and a scrub brush, they’ll happily scrub potatoes and carrots for dinner. According to Montessori experts, even flower arranging is a wonderful kitchen-adjacent activity for toddlers: snipping stems, filling a small vase with water, and arranging flowers can develop fine motor control and creativity. (Plant a garden together this summer and include some flowers so you always have fresh cut options on hand.)

Parent tip: Start small and safe. Use toddler-safe utensils (butter knives, kid scissors for herbs, etc.) and expect a bit of mess as part of the learning. Embrace their enthusiasm even if it doubles your cooking time – trust me, it gets smoother with practice. Whenever possible, try to find a job for them, even if it’s just “Can you put these napkins on the table?” Including toddlers in kitchen activities can require patience, but the payoff is huge. They gain practical life skills and confidence, and you get a child who values the meal you made together during quality time.

Keeping It Real: When Things Don’t Go as Planned (and Why That’s Okay)

I won’t lie – not every Montessori activity ended in a Montessori miracle. There were certainly days when best-laid plans went awry. Toddlers have their own agendas and moods. Montessori at home is about following the child, which sometimes meant abandoning an activity that I thought was awesome, because she wasn’t into it that day.

What I learned is to be flexible and not take it personally. If water play turned into water everywhere and a toddler meltdown, we’d simply pivot – maybe today wasn’t a pouring day, maybe we’d go run around outside instead. Consistency is key, though. If you shelve an idea, reintroduce it a week or two later. Kids are constantly developing, so an activity that flops now might click later.

Also, measure success in new ways. Even if a structured activity didn’t happen perfectly, there were still wins. Maybe they only poured once before deciding to finger-paint the puddle – but hey, in that one pour, they practiced their grip and saw cause-and-effect. 

In the end, our pandemic experiment with Montessori-style activities at home taught our family a valuable lesson: kids don’t need extraordinary circumstances to have extraordinary growth. Every moment – whether it’s matching socks or peeling a banana – is an opportunity for them to explore and for us to connect. So next time you need to keep your toddler busy, look around the house. You might be surprised how the simplest Montessori-inspired toddler play idea can captivate them. 

From one parent to another: you’ve got this, and your toddler is learning so much through everyday moments with you. Enjoy the journey (and keep that towel handy)!