Whether you’re a toddler mom or a school-aged kid mom, there’s no denying it…It’s back to school season. The school supplies are filling the shelves of stores and you can almost feel the change in the air. I’ve always loved back to school time because it seems like a fresh start!

As a student, I loved the excitement of getting new supplies and finding out if my friends would be in my class or not. As a teacher, I loved the excitement of setting up my room and dreaming about what the school year would look like. As a parent to toddlers (not in school), it’s a different feeling. I feel like it’s a new start. A time to try new processes or make small changes to our routine for a bigger impact. Even if your kids AREN’T in school, the excitement of back to school season is still FOR YOU!

1.Stock up on Back to School Toddler Mom Art Supplies

Does seeing the aisles of Target lined with school supplies make you giddy? Yeah, me too! As a parent, I still wander these aisles. Often, there are GREAT sales on school supplies in August…which makes it a perfect time to stock your arts and crafts bins! I stock up on things like glue sticks, white glue, crayons, markers, and zip pencil pouches.

Glue sticks and White Glue

Seriously, we go through so much of this stuff! My toddlers love to glue just for the sake of gluing…so stock up! Personally, I only buy gluesticks if they are $0.25 each or less. One tip for white glue is to put it in a small container with a lid (like a 1oz sauce cup). Then, have your toddler use a small paintbrush to apply the glue. 

Crayons and Markers

I love stocking up on new crayons and markers in August. They’re not only perfect for your craft closet, but they’re also great to throw into birthday presents as well. I typically replace my kids’ crayons every few months after they’re all broken. BUT, I save the broken crayons! And, here’s why!

Zip Pencil Pouches

Ok, Zip pencil pouches may be my FAVORITE things to stock up on! We use them for everything! Puzzle pieces…put them in a pencil pouch. Playdough supplies…put them in a pencil pouch. Magnatiles…put them in a pencil pouch! Get rid of the bulky packaging and put things in pencil pouches. You’ll love the organization! 

DIY Busy Bags

One of our favorite ways to use pencil pouches is for DIY Busy Bags. I put together a small activity that my toddler can do independently. After I introduce it to them, I put it in a pencil pouch and hang it on our Ikea system. My toddler can then grab this activity to do anytime (that means you, as a toddler mom, can get a little break). Right now, the 2 Busy Bag activities we have out are popsicle stick color matching and scissor practice.

For the popsicle stick color matching Busy Bag, I first made little pouches out of different colored construction paper. I added in matching colored popsicle sticks. My toddler can sort the popsicle sticks to the correct pouch.

For the Scissor Practice Busy Bag, I printed some scissor skill sheets onto cardstock and added a pair of plastic safety scissors (they’re not my favorite scissors, but they only cut paper. So for the sake of this being independent, it was necessary!). This is probably my toddler’s FAVORITE busy bag!

2.Toddler mom, it’s time for Change

Back to school season is like the “New Year” of August. I think that’s why I love it so much. It just feels like a fresh start. You can also have your fresh start in your home, even if your kids aren’t in school.

Here’s what we’ve been trying out this August

1. We recently started implementing a snack chart. It has 2 columns: fridge and pantry. Under the fridge column, it has pictures of different fruits and veggies. Under the pantry column, it has some of our pantry staples like apple sauce, graham crackers, and bars. My toddlers will pick their snacks using this chart. I’m hoping this will help make snack time seem less overwhelming!

2. We’ve been going on walks after nap time each day. This is really more for me, but I’ve been putting my kids in the stroller and listening to a podcast while we walk. It helps to reset my afternoon…which every toddler mom knows is necessary!

3. One of my big goals for this year is to have a structured, but independent, morning playtime. I’ve been setting up sensory bins for my kids to “discover” in the morning after breakfast so that I can drink some coffee and (hopefully) do about 30 minutes of work. So far, it’s independent for about 5 minutes, and then my youngest wants to be held. This is still a work in progress, but I’m hoping the more we practice this routine, the longer the independent play will be!

3. Start to teach your toddler at home!

Are you looking for a way to teach your toddler at home? ME TOO! As of now, I don’t plan to send my girls to a traditional preschool, but I do plan to do some sort of preschool at home. How we do at-home preschool probably needs to be a post of its own, but the gist of it is WE PLAY! Seriously, SO MUCH PLAY!

Learn through Sensory Bins

Another way we learn through play is with sensory bins! Your toddler probably doesn’t want to repeat the letter A 15 times….but if you put 15 As in a sensory bin for them to find, they’ll be much more likely to exclaim they found A 15 times! I’d call that a toddler mom win!

Some other ideas to incorporate learning into sensory bins: put your ABC magnets into the sensory bin for your toddler to put into ABC order, put colored pom-poms in for your toddler to sort by color or size, Ask your toddler to put 2 scoops into a container and count together.

(Be sure to grab my sensory bin guide here!)

Learn through Hunts

Another favorite is egg hunts. My toddlers LOVE egg hunts at Easter time, so we’ve carried the idea into the year. If we’re working on shapes, I could draw the shapes on the chalkboard then hide sticky notes around the room with shapes drawn on them. My toddler will go hunt for these sticky notes, tell me what they found, and sort them onto the chalkboard.

Hunts are so great for practicing skills beyond what is written on the sticky note. We practice directions such as “Did you look UNDER the pillow”, visual scanning “look near the chair”, and counting “I see 2 more sticky notes”. And, they’re just fun! 

Learn through Activities 

We also do activities (like the ones in my back to school preschool bundle). The important thing when doing more structured activities is to still focus on the play aspect. The other day my oldest and I were doing a counting/number recognition activity. I asked her if she wanted to help me cut paper and count raindrops. She was so excited to “help”. She cut strips of paper and we counted the pieces to match the number on each card. My main focus of this activity was the 1:1 correspondence. For her, she was excited to be using scissors, and she didn’t even realize we were “working” on 1:1 correspondence. (read more about toddlers using scissors here)

Another thing to keep in mind when doing structured activities is sometimes you need to sit on your hands. Give your toddler the room to explore the activity for themselves. Dot sticker activities are something that comes to mind. My instinct is to hover my child and guide their hand to line up the dot sticker perfectly. When I sit back and watch, I see my daughter place the dot sticker, look again, lift it and try to align it better! She is learning SO much more when I’m not hovering! 

4. Plan some Back to School themed toddler Activities

With a Backpack

Even if your kiddos aren’t going to school, you can still create activities around the back to school theme. An easy way to do this would be to get your toddler a cheap backpack. They’ll love putting stuff in the backpack and taking stuff back out. I gave my toddler an old backpack I had when I was a kid and she LOVES it. She loves to carry her toys around and fill her backpack with snacks! 

With Crayons

Another back to school themed item is CRAYONS! You can do so many different activities with crayons: Color sorting, counting, coloring rainbows. It would also be fun to melt your broken crayons into ABC molds.

With Apples

Of course, it wouldn’t be back to school season without APPLES! My toddler’s favorite apple activity is cutting apples. I cut the apple in quarters, cut out the core, then let my toddler cut the apple into slices. We use these toddler knives! Then we eat our yummy snack!

You could also sort apples by colors, let your toddler wash apples, or even try this apple dot sticker activity!

I hope you’re ready to tackle this back to school season now. So tell me in the comments, how do you plan to spend this back to school season as a toddler mom?

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