1 Year Old Lesson Plans: Activities by Theme

Wondering what to teach your toddler? Take a look at these 1 year old lesson plans, perfect for little ones. Includes activities by theme!

At a year old, the thought of having a lesson plan can seem crazy. She’s only a toddler, you think. She just finished being a baby.

Still, this is the age when your child’s curiosity is limitless. She’s enamored by her world and willing to explore, make mistakes, and keep learning. The goal of creating 1 year old lessons plans isn’t so much to “teach” as it is to give her the opportunity to continue doing what she does best: learning.

She’s building synapses in the brain, putting pieces together to make sense of her surroundings. Educational activities, whether for yourself or even her caregiver, can give everyone a sense of structure and routine. And with weekly toddler lesson plans, you can reinforce a theme over the course of many days.

Weekly themes for 1 year old lesson plans

And that’s exactly what I share here. Don’t think so much about making sure your child learns the alphabet and numbers. Instead, draw on her curiosity and tie in those elements along the way.

For instance, you might count the animals you see on a farm, or expose her to new words as you read about them. You might take her on a “field trip” to visit an observatory or provide a sensory experience by going to the beach.

If anything, these 1 year old lesson plans give you a loose structure to plan your days in case you’re out of ideas. The best part? You’re modeling your own excitement and eagerness to explore, making it easier for her to follow suit.

Check out these weekly themes for 1 year old lesson plans. Many of these ideas are free and easy to do, often at home. They encourage language and gross motor skills, and you’ll find plenty of books to read, places to visit, and crafts to do:

1. Farms

Song: Old McDonald Had a Farm
Read: Children’s books about farms
Field trip: Visit a local farm
Crafts: Do farm-theme crafts for kids

Free resources: Want ideas on what to do with your little one? Join my newsletter and grab your printable calendar of fun and simple toddler activities! Check them off as you go along, or use the blank template to add your own ideas. Get it below—at no cost to you:

2. Gardening

Read: Children’s books about gardening
Numbers: Count the number of leaves on a plant or insects you find
Field trip: Visit a botanical garden
Crafts: Grow green beans (in warm seasons) or peas (in cool ones) from seed
Food: Eat fruits and vegetables found in books you read
Colors: Talk about different-colored flowers, fruits, and vegetables

3. Stars and space

Song: Sing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star
Read: Space books for preschoolers and toddlers
Field trip: Visit an observatory
Numbers: Name and count the planets in the solar system
Crafts: Do space activities for kids

4. Parts of the body

Song: Hokey Pokey or Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes
Numbers: Count fingers and toes
Sensory exploration: Point out different smells, use a sensory table

5. Seasons of the year

Read: Children’s books about seasons
Numbers: Collect and count nature items, depending on the season
Field trip: Visit a seasonal place, like the beach during the summer or a poppy reserve during spring time
Crafts: Do easy and fun activities about the seasons

6. Transportation and automobiles

Song: The Wheels on the Bus
Read: Children’s books about cars
Count: Count how many cars you see or walk by
Field trip: Ride a bus, visit a car museum or small-aircraft takeoff points, or watch construction trucks
Colors: Point out different colors of automobiles
Sign language: Learn baby signs for car, boat, airplane, truck
Sensory activity: Fill a sensory table with sand and place toy construction trucks inside

7. Weather

Read: Weather books for kids
Language: Introduce words like rain, wind, fog, snow, hot, cold, lightning and rainbow
Crafts: Create a weather forecast! Print out an icon and the accompanying word for the day’s weather (for instance, a cloud with rain and the word “rain” below). Hang the day’s weather forecast on a wall and swap it out each day.
Colors: Talk about the colors you can use to describe the weather (“gray” or “blue” to describe the sky, or the “white” clouds).

8. Oceans and beaches

Read: Children’s books about the beach
Field trip: Take a trip to the beach, or visit a local aquarium or marina
Sensory activities: Turn field trips into sensory activities by exploring sand and water
Song: Sing Baby Shark or Baby Beluga

9. Dinosaurs

Field trip: Visit your local natural history museum and look at dinosaur fossils
Numbers: Count how many toy dinosaurs he has and arrange them by size
Crafts: Do crafts about dinosaurs

10. Apples

Numbers: Introduce fractions (yes!) by talking about how you slice an apple into halves, quarters, and 1/8 slices
Read: The Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
Song: Sing Apples and Bananas
Food: Eat an apple, or bake an apple pie together
Colors: Talk about different-colored apple varieties
Field trip: Visit an apple farm where you can pick your own
Crafts: Create an apple craft

11. Pumpkins

Read: Check out the ultimate list of pumpkin books for preschoolers and young toddlers
Field trip: Visit a pumpkin patch, especially during the fall
Crafts: Decorate miniature pumpkins with finger paint
Numbers: Count how many pumpkins you can see at the patch
Colors: Describe the different colors of pumpkins
Sensory activity: Gently touch different textures of pumpkins, from rough and bumpy to smooth and shiny
Food: Bake pumpkin pie cupcakes together

12. Swimming

Read: Children’s books about swimming
Field trip: Take a dip in your pool or visit a local pool
Numbers: Count how many times you carry him up and down into the water
Sensory activity: Describe what he feels: the cool water, the sounds of his splashes

13. Zoo animals

Song: Sing Five Little Monkeys
Field trip: Visit the zoo
Read: Zoo books for kids
Numbers: Count how many animals you see (whether at the zoo or in a book)
Craft: Print and color coloring sheets of zoo animals

14. Trains

Song: Sing Down at the Station
Field trip: Ride a train or visit a train museum
Numbers: Watch a train go by and count the number of cars
Crafts: Create crafts about trains

Conclusion

Even when my kids were only a year old, I loved turning educational “lessons” into a fun and engaging activity. Maybe that meant taking them to a pumpkin patch or counting clouds in the sky. Sometimes all it takes is using descriptive vocabulary, like talking about what you’re doing or the sounds you hear.

Even with 1 year olds, there’s always a way to make learning fun and nurture their curiosity.

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