18-Month-old Activities

If the weather's nice, I'd recommend spending as much time as possible outdoors - park, sandbox, story time at the library, walks through the neighborhood talking about things they see, etc.

Sure there are workbooks you can purchase......if you can find a school supply store, you're likely to find laminated posters with shapes, colors, numbers, alphabet, maps, etc. that they can work on.

At 18 months, a piece of paper, some crayons and some stickers can be hours of fun. So can a bouncy ball for $0.25 from Old Navy, some metal pots to bang on, etc.

Our kids are in day care.....we had a sitter come to our house until our son was 21 months and opted to go with conventional day care after that. It made a huge difference as day care has a structured curriculum and devoted instruction time each day. Our pediatrician said our daughter is about 6 months advanced on her developmental milestones - while we reinforce things at home (colors, counting, etc), the basis of the instruction has come from day care.

She could try to teach simple gymnastics. My son is 18 months and loves to do somersalts (assisted). I just hold him at his hips and tell him "head down" and he does the rest.

Singing and dancing to music could install a lifetime love as well.

(:

Can your nanny take him to a park to play? If she can take him places, that's the best thing...also if there is a children's museum anywhere around that's a fun place to wander around...really any kind of museum or zoo is fun. I always took my toddlers and just let them go while I followed. If she can't drive anywhere, they could go outside for walks. Toddlers love to just walk and look at the different wonders of the world that are no longer of much interest to us adults...rocks, leaves, bugs, etc. This is something they can do everyday.

If she can take him places libraries usually have storytime for young kids with puppets. Our library also has a mother goose time for the young ones- my kids love it!