I love shopping at the Dollar Tree – especially during different holidays when they have all their fun goodies out. When I was teaching, it was always the place I would go. It’s cheap and you can get multiple uses out of some things. Nothing has changed since working with my toddler at home. Dollar Tree is my hot spot. As a matter of fact, many of the items I purchased when teaching are still being carried in the store from season to season. In other words, I’m not doing a lot of rebuying from year to year. I have a box of “important things” and I adjust it to my toddler’s learning style.
Grady is 2.5 and has very little patience or attention span. Many of the activities I make require little effort and the learning can be done in just minutes. They’re fun, quick, and can meet learning needs quickly.
Puzzle Hunt
Super easy alphabet activity! Just take an alphabet puzzle, choose a few letters, and place them inside plastic eggs.
If you have a toddler that can do the entire alphabet, by all means! Do it all! Grady can only handle a few. Too many and he gets overwhelmed and shuts down.
Grady doesn’t necessarily need to know all the letters of the alphabet, let alone the letters that I picked. He’s 2.5 and I just want him to know that these are LETTERS. We’ll get to the specifics at another time.
I took the same idea, and added numbers. I made these numbers for a snow plow activity back in January. Dollar Tree carries large, clear stones and I bought a bag and used my Silhouette to add the numbers. Since I didn’t have a number puzzle small enough to fit into the eggs, I just used these.
Grady is better with numbers and this activity went faster and he was able to name the numbers as well. Number recognition is all we’re working on right now. Number sense (counting and creating sets) will come later.
Easter Foam
This one was a hit! The liquid watercolor is not something I bought at Dollar Tree. Those I purchased at Discount School Supply. They weren’t that expensive and they’re great to have on hand for lots of art projects. The shave cream did come from Dollar Tree though.
Separate your foam into separate bowls, add your liquid watercolor, mix.
Add it to your sensory bin (or any bin)…
Add eggs and tools and let them take off!
Easter Clip Cups
Matching is an important skill for toddlers to learn. It’s actually mathematical and helps in the classification of objects. This in turn helps them identify objects based on their common properties. Fuzzy felt stickers are always available at the Dollar Tree. I buy a few packs and use them as a matching activity.
I always have clothespins on hand (from Dollar Tree) and you can just use cheap plastic cups as your matching tool. The clothespins create added fine motor and strengthen the hand muscles.
Egg Color Match
This bunny egg tray was something I couldn’t turn down. I used my Silhouette to put the color words in each egg cup. Of course, you could always just use a colored marker. The purpose of this activity is for Grady to start putting colors to words. Color words are sight words (you can’t sound them out). So I’m trying to expose him to SEEING the words in color – if that makes sense.
Quick activity and great practice for sight words…
Egg Number Match
Again, I’m just working on number recognition with Grady. We’ve recently added number 6 to our list. An empty egg carton, plastic eggs and some grass and you’ve got number matching. If you have a toddler that is able to count, you could always draw dots on the eggs. Then, they would count the dots and match them to the corresponding number in the carton.
For added fine motor, I glued magnets to the bottoms of the eggs. Then he had to dig them out with a magnetic wand and place them in the carton.
Egg Color Sort
I snagged a few bags of these Easter egg ornaments. This year, I just made a simple sensory bin where Grady would sort them by color. Next year, I plan on using them for counting and graphing. Add some tongs (Dollar Tree) and you have added fine motor.
The colored bowls I purchased from Ikea and they’ve come in handy for a variety of sorts.
So there you have it! Inexpensive Dollar Tree items that you can use for a variety of activities. What’s great is that these items can be reused and readjusted to meet learning needs.
Maybe you can get some ideas from what I have here and cater them to your toddler!
~Ashley