I-Spy Bag

Have you seen these? They are so cute. Here is a tutorial here.
Just as a side note I filled mine with rice and it turned out so heavy so don't skip buying the poly fill beads.

Dinosaur Land

This idea came from this super spectacular idea here. Mine is way scaled down compared to the awesomenes that the idea came from but oh well. I must apologize for being terrible and giving tutorials. I don't think to take pictures a long the way until it is done. I found the pack of dinosaurs for this in the dollar bin at target.

First thing I did was cut out to pieces of brown felt for the ground you can make them as big or small as you want.

Cut out the shapes that you want for your grass, water, and whatever else you would like to add. That brown bump in the back of mind is supposed to be a cave but its a little flat. Sew these pieces to your top piece of felt. Also if you would like yours to fold up then put a piece of velcro on each side (You can see mine in front of the the cave and behind the water).
For the trees on mine I glued them to a piece of felt and then stuck some velcro on the bottom of it. That way when it gets folded up you can take them off an lay them down.

The next step is sew the two pieces of the big felt together. I sewed mine wrong side together and then turned it inside out but if I were to do it again I would just put them together right side and sew around the outside since the felt won't fray.

This works great fold up into your bag and take to restaurants especially if you have a toddler that isn't terribly interested in the crayons and paper.

A Website

Whilst surfing the Internet I cam across this super duper site. It is geared to pre-schoolers but they have some great stuff on there that under 3 could definitely have fun with. When you get there you may want to check out some of the stories but you should for sure check out the parents activities they have for each theme.
www.storyplace.org/preschool

And for those of you interested they have an equivalent for elementary school age.

Playdough and Shapes

M* got Playdough in her Easter eggs. She loves to have play with it but doesn't quite grasp the concept as to what you are supposed to do with it. So to make things more interesting for me and perhaps a little educational for her I quickly drew out this...

Then she can match the shape the playdough is in to the shape on the paper. I think she mostly likes picking the playdough up and then pounding it back down on the paper but hey, one day those triangles will match up.

A Jar

Materials:
Glass jars or clear containers with wide mouths (including lids)
Favorite toys or brightly colored fabrics

Place a toy in each jar or container and screw the lid on just a turn. Show your child how to unscrew the lid to get the toy out. As he or she gets better at unscrewing the lid you can screw it more and more.

M* had a good time with this but this but all the while I sat there thinking, do I really want her to know how to get into jars? Hmm....

Sewing

Materials:
Paper Plate
Ribbon

Punch 1-3 holes in a paper plate. Slide ribbon through the hole so just a little bit is hanging out. Show your toddler how to pull the ribbon out from the hole. When they get the hang of it then you try to help them thread the ribbon themselves.

Slide Show

Materials:
Camera or computer filled with pictures of your toddler, or printed pictures.

Look through the pictures with your toddler. Tell them about what they are doing in the pictures. Little kids love seeing themselves!

Flannel Board Stories

Materials:

Sturdy Cardboard (I made my board about 15"x12")

Enough Flannel to Cover Front of Board

Felt or Flannel to Glue on Back of Story Pieces

Story pictures (check out the sites below or if you child can let them draw pictures for the story themselves)


These sites have free content:
http://www.dltk-kids.com/type/felt_board.htm
http://www.archjrc.com/childsplace/felt.html
http://www.preschoolprintables.com/felt/felt.shtml

This site has stories from the Bible, Book of Mormon, and D&C if you're not LDS don't let that turn you off to the site the Bible stories are still the same:
http://www.stums.org/closet/html/flannel.htm

You can buy from these sites:

http://www.feltboardstories.com/

http://www.thefeltsource.com/