...with toddler activities!

Some days, I feel like entertaining a toddler is a challenge.
Don't get me wrong, Elena is very independent. There are days she could sit and read books to herself for hours.
There are days where she uses her imagination and plays "shopping at Target" or "taking care of baby" all on her own as happy as can be.
But there are also days where she looks to me for entertainment. I sing to her. Dance with her. But it all only lasts so long. (Singing to her often lasts only 2-3 words before she says "mommy don't sing"....yeah, I'm that bad that my child asks me stop singing!)
In need of some ideas to keep it fresh and entertaining, I searched Pinterest (seriously...where would I be without Pinterest??) for toddler activities. I like to keep things on the educational side, if at all possible. Much to my amazement, there are blogs galore out there FULL of ideas of activities for toddlers (and older kids too). Many of them are geared towards homeschooling.

One thing I went on the search for was something related to the weather. Elena loves looking out our big picture window in the living room and talking about the weather. So I decided to make her a weather calendar. I scored a large calendar at Target on clearance for about $2.70. I then found some weather clip art on a toddler home school blog...printed those out and then colored them to make them more fun to look at. I also purchased a laminator at Target and laminated the little weather pictures. Next, I attached Velcro to the backside of each picture and to each day on the calendar. I put all the pictures in a bowl and hung the calendar up on the wall.
Now each morning after breakfast we look out the window and talk about the weather. I then have Elena pick out a weather picture and she attaches it to the calendar for that day. She has fun picking out the correct picture identifying the days weather and sticking it to the calendar. It is also nice to look back and see the weather trend. As she gets older, we can use the calendar for more things, like learning the days of the week, etc.
Here is our little bowl of weather cards:

The other activity I kind of came up with on my own, was an alphabet recognition "game". Elena knows the alphabet (in both English and Spanish) and she's been getting pretty good at recognizing letters. (Most recently - we went to the mall and as we walked by Pottery Barn she saw their metal store sign and called out each letter as she saw them!)
So, using my Cuttlebug die-cut machine, I die cut each letter of the alphabet in one color and then laminated them to a piece of paper in random order. I then die cut each letter again, but in another color, and cut each one out.
Now Elena can take the cut out letters and match them to their "twin" on the laminated paper.

Next up, we will be doing something with pipe cleaners.....not sure what, but I found some at Target for $1 :P
I hear they are rather entertaining for a toddler!