There are three questions to ask yourself when you’re about to embark on an activity that involves both your preschooler and toddler.
Juggling multiple kids with activities can get intense, especially since they’re usually different ages when they’re our own kids.
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- Ask in the The Activity Room: Member’s Only Facebook group for help on an activity you’re trying to do with multiple kids and see how to make it work best! We’re here to help!
I often get asked by readers – What are some activities that I can do with both my toddler and my preschooler?
I think the answer is limitless. It usually just takes a little tweaking of an activity to make it work. It’s learning how to tweak the activity to fit both ages that takes a bit of experience.
My standard answer to these questions is usually along the lines of:
“Try out activities for the younger child. The older child will usually love to join in as is. And if needed, you can build up from that activity to add in learning elements or more difficult tasks.”
A good example of that would be the sticky sensory art project the boys all worked on together. It’s very simple. But the older kids did it in a more organized manner than my toddler did. It was completely a sensory activity for him.
I find that rule mostly true, but it can be limiting as well. Many of the activities geared towards preschoolers are also great for toddlers, just in a simpler form.
I’ve thought about my process and how I managed doing activities with 3 kids 5 and under.
I realized I have three questions I go through in my head.
Question 1: Capability
What can my toddler do for this activity?
Is he actually capable of doing the things involved in the activity?
I’m going to use this activity we did for Christmas as an example.
It’s a name learning activity. Its kind of like a color by number, but with letters and colored pom poms. My preschooler matched up letters of his name and glued the pom poms on the tree.
My young toddler, who’s just barely two, could not do all that.
So the question is: What can he actually do?
He is able to glue. He can physically do it. Maybe not very strategically…
He can place pom poms on the tree. Probably not in specific places.
He cannot recognize or match the letter. That’s out.
Question 2: Reality
What will my toddler do for this activity?
What will he do and what can he do are different questions with quite often vastly different answers.
For that same activity, with the previous answers, I built on it with this question: What will he do?
If I give my toddler a bottle of glue, he’ll probably just squirt it all over the tree, in big blobs or make an enormous mess, wasting the glue, getting nowhere.
He will place the poms poms on the tree somewhere. He’ll probably play with them too, that’s okay.
Question 3: Strategy
How can I handle doing both?
With those answers, I build on it once again: How am I going to handle this?
This helped me realize that the glue was not a good choice for my toddler since I wouldn’t be able to handle guiding him on how to use it while also working with my older preschooler on the letters of his name.
So, what could be used instead of a bottle of glue? A glue stick.
But the pom poms would probably have a hard time sticking to glue stick glue. What else can he decorate the tree with? How about sequins? That worked.
During the activity, I went back and forth between both kids. Helping them along when needed. Stepping back as much as possible, because I believe that they need to do it on their own to figure it out in their heads too.
And just remember, it does get easier incorporating both of them as they get older.
Now with my older kids at the time, 4 and 6, they were both capable of doing most activities. It’s just a matter of tweaking the level of learning that they’re at when we do learning activities.
Instead of learning letters of his name, we could have made it more advanced for my 6 year old and had him do addition problems, or sight words for the activity, depending on what we wanted to work on.
Times When the Toddler or Baby Can’t Participate & What to Do:
Parenting guru, Alissa of Bounceback Parenting has graciously shared her secret tips for doing activities with toddlers while you also have to help the big kids (whether it’s while doing activities, or during homework).
Activities with toddlers and big kids still require quite a lot of energy from us, as the parent. If we’re not “on” toddlers are quick to take off to write on the bathroom walls, but with a little preparation things do go much more smoothly. Good Luck!
Make a spot for the toddler away from messables and breakables.
Move the permanent markers, liquid paint and glass of water out of reach, unless you’re in an easy to clean space and you really want to keep replacing spilled supplies.
This might mean the toddler is in a high chair or at the opposite end of the table.
You can do complex projects with the older kids if you give your toddler similar materials to play with.
If you’re sewing with the big kids, maybe your toddler would like a lacing card.
If you’re painting you can bet your toddler wants to paint too – a younger toddler can finger paint on his high chair tray. An older toddler can be given a brush and a bit of paint – they will want their own and they probably don’t need quite so many colors as their older sibling.
If you’re making a toilet paper (cardboard tube) animal, your toddler might enjoy drawing on a cardboard tube with washable markers, or stringing the tube onto ribbon.
Before you get started, grab a couple of easy to hand over toys for the toddler.
Have a list of “sit by me activities” to do with toddlers that don’t need a lot of parental attention.
Watch for the toys and activities your toddler loves that aren’t too messy and put aside about 5 of those as your go-to independent play activities.
Don’t put out more supplies than you want to clean up.
You’re likely to get distracted by the other kids. As soon as your back is turned your toddler will be pouring her water into her paint tray and across the entire pad of paper. Or she’ll take all three play dough blobs and crumble them onto the floor.
Eliminate a lot of frustration by starting with a more limited amount of supplies in reach of the toddler. You can always add more.
Start simple for the toddler’s activity and then extend the activity as they lose interest.
Your older child may be content to work away at a project, while your toddler is ready to move on 2 minutes into it. You can extend the original activity to keep him occupied.
This is when you start adding supplies. Go with tried and true activities that your toddler loves. Maybe they’re happy to put stickers on anything.
If your child has recently discovered cutting with kid scissors – hand over the scissors and let them cut up their art.
Does he love his toy cars? Grab one and ask if he can paint with it/draw around it/ roll it over his art. Nothing wrong with a little destruction when it comes to toddler art – your toddler might enjoy ripping or tearing the paper.
Just be a lap.
If you can get the other kids going by giving them their own supplies and teaching them how to use them, you can sit with your toddler when she gets restless.
My kids sometimes like if I read a story while they color, or we might put on kid music. Both are perfect for toddler snuggle time.
Finally: always remember the value of snack time.
This can be so entertaining for small folk who’ve gotten bored with the activity at hand.
Recap: 7 Tips to Try When You Have a Toddler Too:
- Make a spot for toddler
- Give similar materials
- Easy-to-hand-over toys
- Keep supplies minimal
- Start simple, then extend
- Be a lap
- Snack time
More tips to do activities with different aged kids:
- Managing Play with Diffferent Ages from Childhood 101
- 20 Activities for Multi-Age Groups from Picklebums
