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)
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:
Usborne Pull Back Book (favorite! shown above)
Printables:
Race Car Shapes with cars
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:
Any of their puzzles! Titus loves these!!
Joey Magnetic Dress UP (another favorite)
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!!
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