5 Activities For 13 Month Old Toddlers

Being at home all the time and not going out as much as we used to, has left me craving more of a routine.

So this month I decided to plan out a month’s worth of activities for my 13 month old. I’m finding it motivates me try the ideas on my ever-growing Pinterest boards and brings variety to our day.

This week we did the following activities:

• Stacking blocks
• Crayons
• No-Bake Oat Bars
• Chia slime
• Pool noodles in water
• Busy baskets including – a crayon and paper, lids and a pot and stacking blocks

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Stacking

Stacking blocks is a nice and simple activity that develops hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills.

For this activity, I added stick-on velcro to a few of our Grimms’ cubes. I hoped this would help K put one on top of the other, but the velcro distracted him. He was more focused on pulling them apart.

In another activity, we tipped all of the cubes onto the floor and I stacked up mini-towers of 2 in front of K.

Once he took off a block, I guided his hand to put the block back on top. I then showered him with praise and he did it a few more times.

He can now successfully stack one block on top of the other but I don’t think he would willingly do this himself yet.

Crayons

I set up a few different crayon activities to try and interest K this week. They involved:

• Taping some of our easel paper roll to a wall in the garden – Duck tape works best for this!
• A high chair activity where I stuck a4 paper to the tray
• Using crayons in our tuff tray with coloured a4 paper – I used pastel colours so that the crayon marks would show up
• Creating a busy basket with paper in a tray and a crayon. See below

When outside I found that K was more interested in holding the crayon rather than drawing on the paper on the wall.

However, he thoroughly enjoyed sitting in the middle of the tuff tray with the paper all around him. This was the activity that encouraged him to use the crayon the most.

It kept him engaged for at least 10 minutes. At times he would wander off. But he would come back again and draw when he saw me doing it.

No Bake Oat Bars

I’ve started baking with K once a week as part of our 13 month old activities.

So far we have effortlessly made flapjack, biscuits and muffins.

I have found that using a learning tower makes baking with a toddler a breeze. It allows K to stand next to me and see what I’m doing.

Putting a tray in front of him and adding a little bit of each ingredient I’m using, gives him the opportunity to explore and keeps him busy during the times he is unable to help stir or pour.

Baking didn’t go too well this week and I forgot to take a photo in all of the chaos!

We made no bake oat bars, which turned out great and tasted amazing!

But it was not a smooth process…

I ran out of honey and peanut butter halfway through and had to go to the shop midway through the recipe.

When we returned home, K was uninterested.

He emptied his tray of ingredients onto the floor!

Lesson learned, when baking with a toddler, preparation is key.

Chia Slime

I used this recipe to create taste-safe chia slime. However, I found that I added too much cornflour which made it feel more like playdough.

Luckily I had another bowl of chia seeds in the fridge, so I just added more to make it more slime-like.

When I got this out for K to play with, he wasn’t interested and poked it twice.

But I preserved and tried the activity the next day.

This time I set it up in our tuff tray and added his nesting eggs and utensils.

The utensils were a hit!

K loved trying to mix and scoop the slime. The longer he played, the more adventurous he became.

He put his hand in the non coloured slime around the edge and even tried to taste it. He also touched the green slime more than once too.

The tuff tray contained most of the mess from this activity.

But I did have to put K in the bath afterward.

Pool Noodles in Water

Adding a cut-up pool noodle to a tuff tray of water is so simple to set up.

I used scissors to cut up the pool noodle and found that opening the scissors and using one blade like a knife made it easier to cut the foam.

Using the tuff tray for this week’s water play worked a lot better than last week’s activity.

The black tray warmed the water quickly and K was able to get in and out as much as he wanted.

He also loved splashing about and holding onto the different foam circles

Busy Baskets – 13 Month Old Activities

Rather than rotating toys on a shelf, I place busy baskets in different rooms of the house.

They have been working really well in the kitchen and in the hallway upstairs.

Using busy baskets also means you can easily take them outside and makes tidying up easier.

This was useful this week because it was a warm, sunny week here in the UK.

In this week’s baskets, I set up stacking blocks, lids, and a pot and paper and a crayon in a tray.

Although I took some of the baskets outside, I found that K was more interested in playing on his outdoor toys.

Stacking blocks

I added stacking blocks to a basket in the hope that K would attempt to build small towers himself.

Although he didn’t try, he did enjoy banging the blocks together.

Lids and a pot

This simple basket was created with K’s interests in mind. He has always loved bottle lids and now he’s showing an interest in putting lids on things.

The lid easily fits onto the seagrass basket and I left the bottle lids outside of the basket to try and encourage him to test out his ideas.

Crayon and paper

This simple busy basket only had a crayon and piece of paper in it.

Adding more than one crayon would have distracted him.

In the end, this basket wasn’t used a lot but we did a lot of other activities that involved K using a crayon anyway.

Conclusion

The activities we did this week were so simple and can be set up outside or indoors on a rainy day. I hope I’ve inspired you to try some of these awesome 13 month old activities with your toddler.

Preparation is key when creating activities for little ones. Especially if you’re baking with a toddler!

Presenting an activity in a different way may interest little one’s more, so if they don’t like a particular activity, try and set it up in a different way.

Don’t forget to check back for next week’s activities. They involve learning to pour, spaghetti sensory play, flower water play, and more!

Don’t forget to tag me on Instagram if you try any of the ideas I’ve shared, I’d love to see.