Over 50 ideas for Quiet Time Activities

Do you need your toddler to be able to play quietly for a period of time so you can get something accomplished?  Does you child no longer take a nap and you need them to have some “down time”?  Are you trying to prepare your child for Preschool or Homeschooling?  If any of these scenarios apply to you then you could greatly use some "Quiet Boxes" for quiet time.

What are quiet boxes/busy bags?  Simply a box or bag that you keep put away in a closet, etc. that you get out only at a designated time for the child to play with quietly on his own.  Some people get super creative with it and have boxes for days of the week and fill the boxes with themed items. Monday is colors, Tuesday numbers, Wednesday sensory, etc. etc. At this point I am not nearly that organized with it.  For me it’s a closet with special toys put in boxes that we pull out at quiet time.  Our day runs so much smoother when we have quiet time play.  I feel good that he is “play learning” and he is loving every minute. 

I have searcher the Internet over and spent a lot of time looking up creative activities to keep little ones busy and learning at the same time. I have listed the activities below that we love and some that are on our wish list of things to try.  This post is actually kind of selfish in nature as I wanted to have a list/reference for myself! I am also hoping that this is beneficial to someone else as well and inspires you to start having a quiet play time with your child and I know you already have things in your home you could start using right away to get you started and hopefully you can make a daily “pocket of rhythm” with your quiet play time.

Little Cost-Low Prep Activities:

Rice & tractors (or gravel/beans, etc)

Magnet Set with cookie sheet

Pom Pom color sorting with egg carton (shown above)
Counting with eggs in egg carton (shown above)

Pom Pom pick up with a clothes pin

Ice cube tray for counting small objects

Paint strip matching (shown above)

Highlighter letter tracing (shown above)

Construction paper circle counting (shown above)

Yard sale circle stickers color sorting

Paper Plate Farm animals (cotton balls, construction paper)

Popsicle puzzles (cut a picture in strips and glue on sticks for matching) Shown below

Play dough with cookie cutters

Rubber bands over a bottle (shown above)

Pipe cleaners and a colander (shown above)

Punch holes in an index card and have them put Pipe Cleaners though it

Cup Cake liners or Cupcake Pan as color/counting sorter 

Scoop and Transfer (bowl filled with rice/beans and pour/funnel/measuring cups)

Magazine Scavenger Hunt (instruct to look for numbers, colors, animals, etc)

Other ideas:

Learning Journey Match It! Spell

Crayola My First Crayon No Mess Marker

Educational Insights Design and Drill

Usborne Pull Back Book (favorite! shown above)

Pattern Blocks with PicturesDesign Cards

Lego Duplo building inspiration cards

Dry erase I Spy

Block Puzzle busy bag

Printables:

Preschool Pack Baby Animals

Number flip book

Number wheel

Ice Cream file folder game

Counting Cards

Dot to dot

Upper Case Do a dot letters

Lower Case Do a dot letters

Do a Dot letter maze

Do a dot print

Phonics pages

Shoe lacing cards

Scissor practice

Race Car Shapes with cars

Matching Activity 
Cup Cake Counting Game

I am pretty much obsessed with all things Melissa & Doug as they have such great educational toys and practically any of them could be used for a quite time activity, but I will list our absolute favorites!  Many of these we have while a lot of them remain on the wish list. 

Melissa and Doug:

See and Spell

Lacing Cards

Magnetic Number Maze

Water Wow Numbers

Any of their puzzles! Titus loves these!!

Latches Board

Lacing Beads

Joey Magnetic Dress UP (another favorite)

Pattern Blocks & Boards

Alphabet puzzle

Number Puzzle

Reusable Sticker Pad

Magnetic Picture Maker 

Color By Dots

Placemats

Sound Puzzle

Basic Skills Puzzle

I do not have a regimented schedule with this but my goal for each day is to do something a little different than the previous day. For example, if we did a printable activity on Monday then Tuesday we may do puzzles and Wednesday a sensory activity. You can get as scheduled/organized as you like, or you can simply just have activities in bins ready to go and just pull whichever one out that suits your fancy for the day.  I have found that the more we switch the activities up the more they hold his attention because they seem new and fresh when they are not overly used. He has his favorites so its hard to not always gravitate towards those, but I try to mix it up.  I have truly been amazed at his attention span as he is only 28 months old and VERY energetic!!! We have added this into our morning rhythm (when Grant goes down for his morning nap). Titus really enjoys this time of special play and I am able to focus a little more attention on him since the baby is down.  I have seen such an improvement to our day when we have this time in the morning. It breaks up some of the monotony of the day (stay at home moms you can relate!) and he is more content to play on his own afterward with his other toys while I am feeding the baby or getting lunch together. 

I hope this has inspired some of you start a "quiet time play" with your toddler/young child.  Quiet play time has been a HUGE help to me as I have an infant to care for and juggling both of them all day is just utterly exhausting.  I feel good about his "play learning" and I love knowing that I am preparing him for preschool by getting him used to sitting in a seat and working on an activity on his own. Its a win, win! 

Thanks for taking the time to read!  I know this one was a long one!!

Pockets of Rhythm

Are you someone who struggles with sticking to a routine? Do have great aspirations to start a schedule but can’t seem to stick to it because the schedule offers no flexibility?  Well, me too!! (And I have a sneaky suspicion that schedules are a hard thing for most people at home all day with little ones)

Get ready to start thinking of routines in a whole new light!  My sister-in-law introduced this concept to me when she found this blog post.  I even borrowed some of her “rhythm” ideas!

I love the concept that you DON’T need a great routine for your whole day! What you need are “pockets of tiny routines.”

How it works:

1.     Start with the worst part of your day

2.     What needs to happen?

3.     What would make the biggest difference time wise?

4.     Write down a routine.

5.     Visualize the routine. 

6.     Keep it simple!

Start small and start with just one routine. Once that has become a habit and it is running smoothly then you can move to your next routine.

When I first tried to think of the ‘worst” part of our day, I really didn’t know where to start because it all felt crazy and overwhelming with 2 boys 2 and under, but one issue was always getting the baby down for a morning nap and keeping the toddler occupied while I nursed the baby and got him to bed. So that is where I started.

The goal:

Get Titus to sit at the kitchen table with a quiet activity.

Visualize it!  If you have a non-reader pictures are helpful. If you children read then you could simply use words on a 3x5 card. Just remember, keep it simple! Most truly dynamic things are clothed in simplicity!

The fun thing is that Titus started looking forward to his morning routine/rhythm and was ready when the time came! No fighting or resistance!  He got used to the routine and loved this time.

I have tried the whole regimented routines and been left completely frustrated because there is no room for flexibility.  These rhythms allow me to have a general framework with flexibility!  Titus doesn’t know if it is 8:30 when we have our morning routine or if its 9:30.  He just knows that that is what we do after breakfast. So if we have a late morning or an early morning the time is irrelevant because his routines stay the same.

Give it a try! Warning! You just may see behavior improvement as you little ones gets settled into a rhythm. God designed us with a need for order and even our littles function better when they know what to expect and have structure!

I Corinthians 14:40

Let all things be done decently and in order.

The timer that I use I found on Amazon. 5 minute Timer.  20 minute Timer.

I hope this inspires someone and helps give structure to your day!  Life at home with littles isn't for the faint of heart!