Mystery Touch and Feel Box
Here's a fun way to occupy your kiddo for a bit while also working on their sense of touch, creative thinking, and descriptive language as they try to describe and identify the mysteries you have gathered for them.
What you need:
medium/small cardboard box
knife
towel (optional)
whatever odds and ends you can find for "mystery items"
This is a super easy one. Grab a box and cut small holes for your kids arms on each side. Note - I WAY overestimated how long my son's arms were and had the box longways - he couldn't even get his hands in! Whoops! So I turned it the other way. It was still a bit too large. Ideally you want your little one to be able to hold and manipulate objects with both hands. My box was so large it was difficult for him to. I put down a towel in the bottom of the box simply because I had one wet item.
Pick out as many different objects in a variety of shapes, textures, etc. as you can, variety is key. Walk through your house and you will be surprised what you can find. Raid the toy bin, the kitchen bric a brac drawer, even grab some nature from outside (I found a pinecone). I have a nosey kid so once I assembled some items I put them in a bag so he couldn't peek.
Then I handed him one item at a time and let him guess what it was! For extra fun, I included a cookie and let him eat it afterwards and a new toy. I loved hearing some of his guesses and was also surprised how quickly he was able to name some items I thought would stump him. How did your kiddo do? Let me know below in the comments!