Toddler Activities

1 to 3 Years Old

Between their first and second birthday, children:

• Are energetic, busy and curious;
• Are self-centered;
• Like to imitate the sounds and actions of others (for example, by repeating words that parents and others say and by pretending to do housework or yard work with adults);
• Want to be independent and to do things for themselves;
• Have short attention spans if they are not involved in an activity that interests them;
• Add variations to their physical skills (for example, by walking backwards);
• Begin to see how they are like and unlike other children;
• Play alone or alongside other toddlers;
• Increase their spoken vocabularies from about 2 or 3 words to about 250 words and understand more of what people say to them;
• Ask parents and others to read aloud to them, often requesting favorite books or stories; and
• Pretend to read and write the way they see parents and others do.

Between their second and third birthdays, children:

• Become more aware of others;
• Become more aware of their own feelings and thoughts;
• Are often stubborn and may have temper tantrums;
• Able to walk, run, jump, hop, roll and climb;
• Expand their spoken vocabularies from about 250 to 1,000 words during the year;
• Put together 2-, 3- and 4-word spoken sentences;
• Begin to choose favorite stories and books to hear read aloud;
• Begin to count;
• Begin to pay attention to print, such as the letters in their names;
• Begin to distinguish between drawing and writing; and
• Begin to scribble, making some marks that are like letters.