Have you ever wanted to get out of the house and do something fun with your toddler but not known quite where to start? As a first time mom who moved to a completely new area 2,000 miles from all my friends and family, I’ve been there! I spent the first three months in our new town mostly hiding out at home because I didn’t know anyone or how to start making friends (it’s way harder when you’re an adult!). Now that I’ve gotten out of my comfort zone, I’ve found some amazing free or almost free activities that my toddler and I absolutely love! We look forward to our activities every week. Here’s a few of our go-to activities!
Story time at the local library
Before I had my daughter, I had NO idea that most libraries offer more than just book checkout! Many offer completely free toddler/preschooler classes, often referred to as story time. I looked our library up online to find the schedule on their website, and we’ve been going every week! The librarian reads a book out loud to the children and then afterwards they get to do a craft related to the book and the week’s theme.
The story and craft are great, but the best part of story time has been the opportunity for my baby to socialize with other kids her age! We’ve made lots of friends through the library group who we now meet up with for playground picnics and lunches out. It’s been the very best thing we did in our new town! I definitely recommend checking out what your hometown library offers for toddlers and kids!
Playground Meetups
The best way to start making mom friends is to just start up conversations on the playground! Now I am not an extrovert by any means, but I’ve found it so easy to just start chatting with other parents at the playground. It comes naturally when your kids start interacting! You may even find that groups of moms with kids the same ages as yours meet up at a certain time each week.
Zoo memberships!
Hear me out! This one isn’t quite free, but it could balance out for you like it will for my family! Depending on your local zoo, the cost of a membership may equal one or two trips. We did the math and figured out that the cost of the zoo membership would equal slightly less than the cost of two separate visits. So if we plan on going to the zoo more than twice this year, the membership is well worth the upfront cost!
The zoo is a great place to take toddlers for the day or even just a couple of hours! We’ve found new and exciting things to do at the zoo seasonally or even in different exhibits that we missed on our first trip. We even found that there’s an AMAZING splashpad at the attached botanical gardens- and admission is included for free with our zoo membership! With the amount of zoo trips we’re planning for the spring and summer, the up front cost of a membership will be well worth it for our family.
We live in a pretty small town, so we don’t have as many options for fun and free toddler activities. But what we do have is more than enough to keep my energetic and social 18 month old happy all week long! Do you have any amazing free toddler activities in your town? Share with us in the comments!