As much as we love having your kids with us here at Texas Children’s Academy, we know that you’d much rather be spending time with them, enjoying this special time in their lives. So we’ve put together a list of some of our favorite summertime activities for you and your toddlers to try this summer.

Scavenger Hunts

This is a summer-long fun activity. Try themed scavenger hunts including color themes, garden and nature themes, and activity-based themes. One of our favorites is a scavenger hunt for parts that belong to a game or activity like Jax, pegboard sets, or art projects. Once the scavenger hunt is finished, your toddler has a whole new activity ready to go!

If you’re planning a special outing, try having a scavenger hunt for clues. When the secret is discovered, your child’s excitement, pride, and anticipation will warm your heart and theirs.

Frozen Paints

We love this idea for hot summer days. Mix up some non-staining paint and freeze it in icecube trays or animal-shaped freezing trays. Put a popsicle stick in each one. After about an hour, you’ve got a great outdoor paint set ready to go. The melting paints provide a whole new sensory experience for your toddler.

Pool Noodle Race Track

It’s amazing what you can do with a pool noodle. Cut one in half and you’ve got an instant race track for cars and soap boats. If you’ve got older kids, they can work with your toddler on this one, creating start and finish-line signs, race flags, and fun, looping tracks. Add a garden hose to create a pool-noodle river and you’ve got the perfect place to race soap boats. Bars of soap racing down a river in a pool noodle makes for surprisingly exciting competitions.

Gardening

If you’re a gardener, set aside a small area for your toddler to do their own gardening. Plant something that they can care for. Include a spot for just playing with outdoor textures and populate it weekly with nature’s abundance of textures, shapes, sizes, and colors to keep your toddler exploring while you work.

Bug Safari

Like a scavenger hunt but with butterfly nets, a bug safari engages your toddler with nature in a special way. This activity delivers an almost endless stream of teachable moments.

Chalk Art

Good old chalk. We might think it’s a bit passé, but your toddler is sure to see it as the latest-and-greatest thing. The freedom of drawing on the sidewalk or concrete patio, gives your toddler a new sense of independence, fosters uninhibited creativity, and creates opportunities for them to act with their peers. They’ll love it.

Water Wonderland

On hot days, there’s nothing better than playing with water. Don’t worry, you don’t have to be a water-waster to have fun in the sun. Toddlers are little, it doesn’t take a lot of water to create a wet and wonderful world for them. Try filling dollar store ketchup containers with water. They’ll squirt water pretty far. Puddle jumping is great fun and helps build motor skills. Try table-top water activities. Fill containers with water and provide a supply of floating items, sinking items, balls, buckets, and dippers. Add food coloring to some of the containers for even more fun.

We hope you’ll enjoy these activities when your toddlers aren’t here with us at Texas Children’s Academy. If you need some extra summertime child care, give us a call. We’re sure your toddler will love their time with us.