Toddlers horrible at indoor free play!

I am jut wondering if it is just the age or if I am doing something wrong or maybe my schedule and supplies need tweaking? But my toddlers are horrible at free play! We do a lot of structured activities as this engages them the most but when it is time for free play they just stand around or wander?! I have lots for them to do and I am getting frustrated having to tell them how to play or what to play with. It's constantly "go and play" or "look at all the things you can do, go play with the kitchen and make some food, or play with the dolls and feed them or build with the blocks/ train tracks, or the farm" etc. do I have too many options? Once the do play with something, it's a few minutes! How do I encourage longer free play and imagination?! I have a dress up bucket that I bring out a couple times a week because when I had it out full time, they didn't play with it! My sons old daycare used to have no toys out but a few buckets of toys that they rotated and I hated it because my son wasn't able to play with lots of options and use his imagination, he was forced to play with the one item they brought out...but now I know why they resorted to this!! I have an art easel out all the time too which they never use unless I make it a big deal and encourage them too...thinking of getting rid of it!? Most of the toys that are left out all the time ( and rotated once a month) hardly get touched?! But if I bring them out every other day, they play with the?! Advice please!

I have four pantries I bought at crappy tire .... They have have 3 shelves and doors and I arranged my toys in the pantries and put child locks on the doors ... I open a different door each day. Great form of toy rotation and there is not so many toys out at one time .... The more toys the less they play and when the doors are closed its neat and tidy. I have cars and trucks, duplo, puppets, puzzles and push toys (shopping carts strollers lawn mowers ) available at all times as well as a kitchen centre, doll centre, tool bench, and reading centre. I also have a huge magnetic chalk board painted on my wall. So there is lots of choices even if I don't open a pantry door for some reason.

I only do art once a week and take out the crayons/markers on a limited basis so that it is something special to do. If you are finding they aren't playing with anything then it is probably because they have too much. Try putting half the stuff away and see if it changes. It can take awhile for them to get into playing on their own if they are used to always having someone lead the play. Imaginative play doesn't really happen until well into their 3rd year I have found, and actually playing with other kids (as opposed to near them) doesn't happen until around 3 years old either.

I do similar to what Crayola kiddies does with her toys. Some are always available and others are rotated.

thanks girls. We are moving my entire daycare room to a different room (our lower level) this weekend and I plan on spending a lot of time going through all the toys and setting it up to encourage more play as well as putting A LOT away!! I love the idea of those cabinets!!

Canadian tire puts them on sale periodically for about $60

Maybe the problem is that you are not doing enough freeplay? You said you do a lot of structured activities, so I am wondering if it is simply that they aren't getting practice with freeplay? I do 80% freeplay every day whether inside or out and none of my kids has any problem with it as they are very used to using their imaginations. I have never had to show anyone how to play as they take their cues from each other. Maybe you could just try to encorporate a lot more freeplay time so they start to get the hang of it. Good luck!

I do almost the same as Sunny days. Kids free play outdoors good part of morning. We have some crafts or other structured activities in the afternoon for about 30-60 min. depending on their span, more free play, read some books and songs and more free play.

That might be one of the problems! I just opened in January and am still learning daily!! I think I need to revamp everything!! Lol the problem is, one of these toddlers, is my Son and he is ALWAYS wanting us to engage him (unless he is watching tv)...I feel like a failed as a parent sometimes!!

Take a look at the age mix of kids you have. If there aren't older kids to show them how to use their imagination then it will be awhile before it happens. Also as you move your toys take a look at each one and decide what the age level is for that item. If you don't have kids that age put it aside. Sometimes the one puzzle with the big pieces gets lost on the shelf of puzzles and so they either dump all the others and can't put the pieces back or don't go there at all cause when they do they get told not to dump - which is a normal toddler activity.

For your group learning times why not teach then how to use the toys instead of a lot of what you are doing now. Show them how a toy works or how to expand the use of other toys like putting blocks in the dump truck and dumping them out, lining up the cars in a row, sorting the blocks by colour. Then hopefully they will start to do some of those things in play.

I agree that it does sound like the majority of the day they are told what to do and how to do it and are "entertained" so it isn't a surprise that they have not learned to play alone. At home parents are doing the entertaining or giving them something to do such as turning tv on for them so there is just this awkward hour they need to get through. At the same time having some down time and doing nothing isn't a bad thing for them either. Mostly I would make sure there are options available that are age appropriate but not so much that it overwhelms and then just let them be - they will figure it out. Once you do move down to the other room I am guessing it is a bigger space - spreading out activities makes a difference too so they specifically go to a place to do that activity not stand and stare at a shelf of everything.

Rubbermaid buckets of toys out of rotation make great play surfaces to just put a toy on. Then trade out a few every few days. Toddlers wander and carry things from place to place - that is normal play for them.

I was going to say the same thing as Sunnydays as I found this when I started. The kids did not know how to free play and they had to learn. I didn't have a ton of structured activities myself but it became clear quite quickly that my dck's were used to being entertained and played with. They have gotten better with more practice and I would say, my program is now 90% free play as most of our time is spent outdoors exploring and playing.

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Originally Posted by DaycareLady

That might be one of the problems! I just opened in January and am still learning daily!! I think I need to revamp everything!! Lol the problem is, one of these toddlers, is my Son and he is ALWAYS wanting us to engage him (unless he is watching tv)...I feel like a failed as a parent sometimes!!

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I think playing with our kids is quite common when they are our first born. I know my older daughter really struggled with independent play because I spent so much time with her. I had to consciously "teach" her how to play alone. I learned my lesson with baby #2 who is awesome and independent.

We do a lot of free play here, I would say we spend a total of 1 hr a day or less doing adult-led activities. Some kids I've had are better at playing than others but they have all caught on eventually :) I have always had mixed ages in my group which really helps.
I also rotate toys but only the bigger ones....but I do use our everyday toys when I'm doing activities with the kids so it will spark their imaginations and give them new ways to use our same old toys. Like if we are learning about ponds we will dig through our animal bin and pick out all the creatures that live in a pond and use them for counting, games, sensory bins, etc. Something as simple as cutting out a piece of blue paper in the shape of a pond and adding it to the play area will suddenly make those animals that were forgotten in the bottom of the bin seem super exciting.

I have quite the opposite problem...my little ones love free play so much that they are hard to corral fro any extended period for most adult led activities; the younger they are the less attention span they have:). Good for you for really getting them to engage; a valuable thing that they do need to learn for school.

I do alot of free play. They are toddlers they need to learn how to play. If you start doing structure they will keep looking at you to engage them. I don't even play with them, and they have great imaginations and the play really good together. I love my toddlers, they are the best. Yesterday they took the toy muffins and were barbequing them.