20 Fun Activities for 1-Year-Olds You Can Make With Items You Already Have

If toddlers could, they'd play in the bath all day. When that's not feasible, get scoops, a few bubbles, a brush, and some Duplo bricks and throw them all in a bin of water. (Keep towels on hand.) Then watch as they wash, pour, and scrub their toys!

Get the tutorial at Mama Papa Bubba »

RELATED: Fun Toddler Activities That Give Their Bodies and Brains a Boost

Recycle the lids to baby-wipe containers for a project that gets them investigating different textures. Glue down different materials under each lid — dry pasta, felt, pom poms, etc. — and watch the look of surprise as they open and feel each one.

Get the tutorial at Baby Play Hacks »

Another thing you can do with an empty wipes box is fill it with scraps of fabric that are both long and short, rough and smooth, and different colors and patterns. Your tot will be delighted to reach in, pull out, and investigate each one, which helps with fine motor coordination.

RELATED: The Best Toys for 1-Year-Olds Growing Out of Their Baby Gifts

Save those cardboard paper towel tubes! With a few quick adjustments, you have yourself a shaker so your toddler can practice percussion. Try filling a few with different materials — dried rice, beans, etc. — and let your 1-year-olds experiment with the different sounds they make. They can even help decorate the tube!

Get the tutorial at The Craft Train »

Did you ever notice that, even though there's a room full of toys, 1-year-olds always wind up fiddling with doorknobs or drawer pulls? Give them what they want: Attach locks, knobs, buttons, bells, flaps, zippers, and any other hardware to a board you can keep at kid level.

Get the tutorial at Something Tourquoise »

RELATED: Amazing Indoor Activities for Kids' Rainy-Day Fun

It seems so simple: Just cut a slot into the lid of a jar, and then offer some colored tokens to put in and take out. And yet fitting the coins into the slot, hearing the satisfying clunk when they hit the bottom, and then digging them all out again is endlessly amusing. Bonus: This activity helps practice fine motor coordination.

Get the tutorial at How We Montessori »

A bin, some ball-pit balls, and a sieve — and endless scooping fun. Challenge your toddler to scoop only red balls, or try and get two in one go, and get him practicing his gross motor coordination.

Get the tutorial at The Train Driver's Wife »

RELATED: The Best Learning Activities for Toddlers to Get Them Ready for Kindergarten

You can buy Play-Doh or make your own modeling dough. Either way, working the dough will exercise the muscles in kids' hands, and if you can get them to roll a ball with their pointer and their thumb, you can also work on the all-important pincer grasp.

Get the tutorial at The Best Ideas for Kids »

Like the Colorforms of yore, a DIY felt board lets toddlers take basic shapes and combine and re-combine them to make patterns and pictures. As they get older, you can add more advanced shapes with letters and numbers.

Get the tutorial at Wait 'Til Your Father Gets Home »

Take a bunch of pipe cleaners (make sure the ends aren't sharp) and thread them through a kitchen colander. Your toddler will love pulling the pipe cleaners out and trying to lace them through again, which helps strengthen hands and work on the pincer grasp. You can also do this activity by poking holes in an old egg carton.

Get the tutorial at Raising Dragons »

Tape a piece of clear contact paper to the wall, sticky side out. Then give your toddler construction paper shapes, pom poms, and other doo dads. Pretty soon you'll have a collage that doesn't require any school glue.

Get the tutorial at Elements of Ellis »

Finger painting gets those little hands working, and lets them have fun with colors and textures. Tip: Squeeze out some paint and put it in a plastic bag with paper to avoid making a mess. If you want to go the extra mile, making it a "tummy time" activity gets more of those muscles working during art time

Get the tutorial at Mama Papa Bubba »

Use painter's tape to attach cardboard tubes of different sizes to a wall. Then, give your toddler bunch of pom poms to drop into tubes; she'll be amazed to see how they fall out of the other end again. Make sure you put some tubes where your toddler has to reach to get to them — standing up tall, and then squatting down to pick up the pom poms again, will help strengthen the leg muscles they need for walking.

Get the tutorial at Whirlybobble »

Kids will get a kick out of seeing how the colored bits of rice mix. if you think letting them dig through a rice bin would be too messy (it does involve sweeping), you can always fill an empty, clear water or soda bottle with rice and other small objects, seal it up tightly, and make an "I Spy" game with it.

Get the tutorial at The Best Ideas for Kids »

RELATED: DIY Sensory Bin Ideas to Get Kids Used to New Textures

Another cool sensation for 1-year-olds? Sticking their hands (or feet!) in wet spaghetti. You can even hide toys under the strands and have them dig for them.

Get the tutorial at The Imagination Tree »

Toys that stack on top of each other or nest inside of each other help kids grasp the concept of "big" and "little" and get them learning about basic building concepts. You can buy a pre-made stacking cup toy, or gather different sizes of cups and containers (snack-sized Tupperware, empty yogurt cups) from around the house.

BUY NOW

Time to practice those matching skills! If you don't want to buy a color-sorting or shape-sorting toy, you can DIY at home by putting different colored construction-paper circles in a muffin tin and having a kid sort colored pom poms, or even getting a bunch of colorful plastic bins and having your child sort toys by color.

BUY NOW

Toddlers are fascinated with cleaning and pretending to clean. (If only they kept up that interest in their teenage years!) Go with it: Let them spray water with a spray bottle — it helps strengthen their hands.

Give your toddler yarn and big shapes of pasta and see if she can thread the pasta through, as if she were making a necklace. In order to get the yarn through, they have to master that pincer grasp.

Save those cardboard boxes from your big deliveries! Making a tunnel to crawl through works those little muscles.