Since Valentine’s Day is around the corner, everyone will be busy making plans for gifts/ mementoes. If the gifts are handmade by your toddler; they are much more precious & closer to heart.  

Sulbha Bathwal, a mom of twins, does many engaging activities which help her toddlers with fine motor skills, language, mathematics, hand-eye coordination, imaginative skills, art and craft etc. She prefers doing these activities with easily available materials at home.

Here is a list of easily doable DIY ideas for your child that improves the fine motor skill & creativity of your child:

1. Transferring coloured rice with a spoon

For this, we need just 2 bowls, a spoon, rice(prefer coloured as kids are fascinated by colours). Transfer rice from one bowl to another with help of a spoon. This is an activity that built hand-eye coordination, fine motor skills and concentration in toddlers

2. Sensory basket

For creating a Valentine’s Day sensory basket, use all the red colour things available at home like coloured pasta, pompom, pipe cleaners, rice and added alphabets “love”. The kids would love to explore the basket.

3. Cutting skills

Draw a heart on a piece of paper and ask your child to cut in pieces using scissors.

4. Imaginative play

Cut foam in heart shape, dip it into colour and ask kids to make different shapes out of this foam. Try making faces by adding eyes; add leaves make a flower; this will make the kids think out of the box.

5. Art and craft

Cut a chart paper into a heart shape(coloured or white) & fold it like a card. Then ask your child to stick a smaller heart on the big heart and make a beautiful heart-shaped card for their dad.

6. Chopping strawberry

Use a toddler’s friendly knife and give some strawberries(or any easy to cut veggies/fruits) to your child to cut it for salad. This will teach them the basic skills of chopping.

7. Making shapes

Give red play dough to your child and ask them to create different shapes out of them like heart, flower etc.

At the end of it all, you will have loads of DIY creative gifts for your family for Valentine’s Day.

Please Note: All these activities have to be done under the monitoring & guidance of adults.

For DIY activities for your toddler and more resources for toddlers and preschoolers visit ProEves.