Curriculum &
Programming for
Toddlers
Setting Up the Physical
Environment
Toddler Considerations
Setting Up the Physical
Environment: Basic Considerations
Younger toddlers (14-24 months)
• Practice large-muscle skills and my be active climbers
• Enjoy emptying, filling, dumping and pouring
• Enjoy sensory play using materials like water, rice, sand,
shaving cream
• Enjoy playing alongside others with matching toys
• Developing a sense of wear things belong
• Become overstimulated by active activities and calmed by
quiet activities
Older toddlers (2 years old)
• Push, pull and carry things around
• Enjoy practicing motor skills
• Interested in simple dress-up clothes and pretend play
• Pull toys off shelves
• Enjoy choosing books, toys, and puzzles
• Recognize where things belong
Basic Activity Centers for
Toddlers
Greeting area
•Parent boards, storage
area, sign-in
Eating, sensory play
and creative art area
Active play area
(indoors & outdoors)
Pretend play area
•Special structures (ramps,
stairs)
•Push/ride on toys
•Music
Toileting/diapering
area
Quiet play areas
•Cuddle-up structures
•Reading corner
Sample Toddler rooms..
Sample Toddler room
Sample toddler room
Physical Development
Toddlers
Toddlers’ Physical
Development
Young toddlers (14-24 months)
• Developing new skills, like squatting, pushing,
pulling, climbing, walking and running
• Can drop toys into a bucket
• Enjoy bouncing up and down to music and try to
perform simple finger plays
• Practice small-muscle skills like stacking blocks,
turning pages of a book, putting large pegs in a
pegboard
• Building hand/eye coordination
• an 18-month old in action
Toddlers’ Physical
Development
Older toddlers (2 years)
• Learn to go up and down stairs
• Proud of physical accomplishments and insist on being
watched and praised
• Likely to get wound up and overactive
• Developing small muscle skills
• Continue to build hand/eye coordination
• Tear paper, glue, scribble with crayon, paint with easel
• Enjoy big toys & equipment, like slides, bounce balls
and wagons
• Experiment with throwing different objects, like balls,
blocks, …
Activities that enhance
large-muscle development
Provide toys that
encourage pushing,
like carpet sweepers
and toy lawn
mowers
Provide sturdy riding
toys
Provide toddler
slides
Provide movement
and music activities,
encourage imitation,
and provide motor
skill practice
Provide safe places
for climbing
Provide tunnels for
crawling through
Rope trains
Obstacle courses
Activities that enhance
small-muscle development
Provide busy boards for
practicing small-muscle
skills
Provide pounding
benches that give
children practice with
wrist action and
eye/hand coordination
Encourage children to
play with toys that have
cranks that turn, like
music boxes
Provide materials that
help children strengthen
their hands and fingers,
like pop-beads and
squeeze toys
Offer children art
materials
Offer children puttogether sets of building
blocks
Place baby dolls in the
water table with some
sponges and washcloths
Action songs
Communication Skills
Toddlers
Development of Communication Skills
Younger toddlers (14-24 months)
• Developing single-word vocabulary that
usually ranges from 50-100 words
• Enjoy picture books about familiar things
• Learning to make the sounds of pets and farm
animals
• Put together 2-word phrases, such as Mommy
home or Daddy push
• Can follow one-step commands, like Bring me
the keys
• toddler conversation
Development of Communication Skills
Older toddlers (2 years old)
• Rapidly expanding vocabulary
• Enjoy rhymes, picture books, and books with
repetition
• Speak in two- and three-word sentences
• Can follow very simple two-step commands,
like Go to the table and bring me a plate
• Uses words to communicate wants and needs,
to share interests, and to initiate interaction
• Asks “where” and “what’s that” questions
Activities to promote communication
skills
Picture books
Games with pictures
and dolls
Picture albums
Send children on
“errands”
Puppets
Picture matching
games
Telephone games
Nursery rhymes,
songs and chants
Pretending
Everyday
conversation and
encouraging children
to “use your words”
Describing children’s
actions
Farm animal games
and songs
Cognitive Development
Toddlers
Toddlers’ Cognitive Development
Young toddlers (14-24 months)
• Imitate actions that they see caretakers and other
children do, like sweeping, stirring, and hugging a
toy animal
• Beginning to engage in pretend activities like
going to sleep, eating a cookie, and talking on the
phone
• Know where to find a favorite toy even when not
in sight
• Can help with simple tasks, like putting toys away
• Play with toys in appropriate ways, like putting
together a stacking toy
Toddlers’ Cognitive Development
Older toddlers (2 years)
• Interested in sorting objects according to
qualities like color or shape
• Can string large beads, stack blocks and
complete an insert puzzle with 4-10 pieces
• Recognize when something is out of place or
doesn’t belong
• Enjoy playing with toys that present a challenge
• Use one object to represent a different object
• Enjoy playing with other children and copying
their actions, but probably not ready to share
toys
Activities that encourage
problem-solving
Play hide-and-seek
games with objects
and toys
Place large beads in
a large container, so
children will have to
tip it over to
retrieve the beads
Give children pots
with lids to play
with
Make a house from a
large appliance box
Demonstrate ways
of using hollow
blocks for stacking
and nesting
Nature corner
Exploring textures
Nature walks
Sinking and floating
experiments
Animals
Planting activities
Puzzles
Development of Creativity
Younger toddlers (14-24 months)
• Experiment with different ways of playing with the same object dropping, rolling, kicking and squeezing a Nerf ball
• Enjoy using crayons to make marks
• Play with sand and water in a variety of creative ways
• Respond to music with body movements
Older toddlers (2 years old)
• Beginning to understand representation, such as knowing a doll
represents a baby and that a drawing of a dog represents a real dog
• Use blocks to make towers, roads, houses…
• Enjoy things that are beautiful, such as music, flowers, and
paintings
• Experiment with different scribbles and different ways of finger
painting
• Listen to music and invent dances
• Enjoy marching to music and being part of a rhythm band
Activities to promote
creativity
Water tables
Music activities:
listening, dancing
and creating music
Play-dough and
flubber
Cornmeal play
Smell jars
Songs
Painting
•Wheels on the bus
•If you’re happy and you
know it, clap your
hands
•Use a variety of tools
like brushes, Q-tips,
string, cotton balls,
sponges, fingers…
Building blocks
Pretend play
Emotional Development
Toddlers
Emotional Development
Younger toddlers (14-24 months)
• Very clear of likes and dislikes
• Growing sense of self
• shopping cart study
• Use gestures, grunts and some words to get
adults to respond to their wishes
• Enjoy being praised and upset when scolded
• Show delight when people clap or laugh at what
they do
• Show empathy when someone is hurt
• Express a whole range of emotions - including
worry, happiness, and jealousy
Emotional Development
Older toddlers (2 years old)
• Assert themselves in many different ways,
insisting on doing things their way and getting
what they want
• Learning to make choices and say no
• Emphatic about doing things themselves
• Test limits by doing what they have been told
not to and watching adults’ reactions
• Have temper tantrums
• Can use some words to express feelings
• Recognize some things belong to them and
may resist sharing
• Enjoy being helpers
Promoting emotional development
Provide a supportive
environment
Encourage children to
do things for
themselves (including
self-care)
Express delight when
toddlers show off new
accomplishments
Talk about different
feelings
Recognize that sharing
is difficult, and provide
more than one of the
same toy
Provide opportunities
for the children to
make choices
Provide opportunities
for the children to help
with tasks and praise
them for being helpful
Recognize that
disobedience is a
normal way for toddlers
to express their growing
independence and
selfhood
Provide safe
alternatives when
children insist on doing
something hurtful or
dangerous
Social Development
Toddlers
Social Development
Younger toddlers (14-24 months)
• Enjoy being with other children but don’t
understand taking turns or sharing
• Enjoy playing follow-the-leader games and
may join others in throwing toys off shelves
and making a mess
• Likely to select one or two special friends
• May bite another child as an experiment, a
way of getting attention, or an expression of
anger or frustration
• May join a friend in pretending, such as
making “vroom-vroom” noises with a toy car
or feeding pretend cookie to stuffed animals
Social Development
Older toddlers (2 years old)
• May find a special friend
• Likely to get into a quarrel with a friend
over who gets to play with a particular toy
• Use pretend play as a way of initiating
friendship
• Use transitional objects, such as a blankie
or special toy, to overcome fears
• Enjoy playing running and chasing games
with others
Supporting social development
Demonstrate affection
by spending special
time with each toddler
Recognize and reinforce
early friend making,
such as seating children
together at mealtime
and naptime
Structure the
environment in a way
that facilitates toddlers
sitting, reading,
exploring, and playing
together
Be supportive of solitary
play
Pay particular attention
to biting and hitting,
noting what happens
before and teaching
appropriate
replacement behaviors
Provide duplicates of
popular toys
Use pretend play as a
way of enhancing
empathy