Children need to interact with toddlers of their age group to learn important social and teamwork skills. As a parent, arranging play dates for them with friends from the kindergarten, neighbourhood, or playground is a great way to allow your toddler to learn and grow at their own pace and in a comfortable environment.
However, if the playdate is arranged at your place, you might quickly run out of ideas to keep the children engaged. There will come a time when you will run out of toddler games and need fresh ideas. If you are looking for interesting ways to keep children engaged during playdates, read through the following article.
- Movie Marathon
Not every playdate needs to be an interactive, chaotic game time that drains all your energy. Let’s be honest, handling more than one toddler at once is no easy task. So, ask the kids their favourite movies, write them on little chits and put them in a jar. Let every kid pick a chit one by one and play the movies in that order. Easy Peasy! The kids are engaged, entertained and no mess in the house.
Feel free to mix between Studio Ghibli, Pixar and Disney films. Keep the captions on so that the children can learn to read while enjoying their favourite films.
- Online Educational Games
Don’t feel guilty about squeezing in some screen time during playdates. With online educational games, children can play and learn at the same time. One can download a letter tracing app on a phone or tablet and have the kids learn to trace together. You can even turn it into a healthy competition and keep simple prizes in the end.
You can also play educational videos from YouTube Kids or other online apps for toddlers to watch, listen to, and learn. This is an interesting way in which phonics for kids can be taught. The toddlers won’t even realise it, but they will be learning important communication and pronunciation skills while having fun.
- Hand-Print Colouring
Toddlers absolutely love colouring and colour-related games. If you want to take that experience to the next level, let them have fun colouring with their hands. It might get a bit messy, for sure, but it will keep them engaged for hours. You can lay the sheets of paper on the floor or have them stuck on the door/wall for easy access. The kids can later paste their work of art on the fridge or take it home!
- Simple Preschool Games
Nothing is more interesting than old-school preschool games. We might think it might be difficult to keep the kids entertained for long periods of time in the iPad era. However, kids are kids in the end, and if you play simple interactive games with them like pass the ball, music and chairs, Simon says, etc., they might end up enjoying them more than any other activity.
And there you have it! Low-effort activities to keep the toddlers entertained during playdates. Feel free to participate in these activities yourself, so that everyone involved has a good time!