Category Archives: Toddler Date

Cheap Dates with Toddlers – Wildlife Viewing

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Spring is a great time to explore wetlands parks* and see what kind of wildlife you can spot. Ducklings are a pretty likely bet at most wetlands! Often wetlands parks have boardwalks, where you’ll have to hike out a ways to see the wildlife.

Hikes are great activities with toddlers, because they burn off energy but in a lot lower-key, non-overstimulating way compared to a trip to a playground at a McDonalds or the mall! (Now, I’m not knocking McDonald’s playgrounds here – they’re absolutely a place we head on a cold, rainy day when we’ve got to get out a little energy before story time at the library.)

You can sing songs or do nursery rhymes as you walk. You can talk about the things around you – the plants, the people, the animals…

Today, we went to Juanita Bay Park in Kirkland, WA. It looks small from the road, but then you get in and it’s a huge park with lots of trails and board walks. We saw a mama duck with 7 ducklings, lots of other ducks, red-wing blackbirds, and lots of turtles sunning themselves on logs. We spotted a baby bunny off the side of the path. And we checked out some ant hills on our way back to the parking lot.

One of the challenges of nature hikes is that sometimes the thing you want to see is a long ways away, or camouflaged. I think this offers great practice for toddlers in observation skills. When they look out at this sea of lily pads, can they spot the mama duck? How about the babies? It’s also good for listening to directional information: like when I was pointing out a squirrel, and said “look way over there, in the tree with the white blossoms on it. Do you see the tree? There are two branches on the right side – the squirrel is on the top branch”, there’s a lot of vocabulary and concepts that go into understanding those directions.

For more ideas for nature activities with your child, click here.

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* If you’re thinking there are no wetlands near you, I’ll tell you that today I looked at a map on a sign at the park, and it showed wetlands in every single state – I grew up in Wyoming, and the map showed wetlands in the northeast quadrant – now I’m curious where they are!

Cheap Dates with Toddlers: Farmers Markets

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I love taking my kids on outings to farmer’s markets – the toddler and the teenagers! It’s a chance to be outdoors, walking, surrounded by people of all ages from your community. Every time we go we run into someone we haven’t seen in ages, and it’s a nice chance to say a quick hello.

The market stalls offer a visual feast… I’m not really a visual person – I may not even notice if there’s art on the wall in a restaurant – but at a farmers’ market, I love the colors and textures: the glossy green cucumbers, the bright red bell peppers, the lumpy brown potatoes, the yellow sunflowers, and more.

Shopping at the market is also a great chance to be more aware of food, where it comes from and seasons. In summer we might go home with lettuce, cucumbers, peppers, and tomatoes for fresh summer salads. In late season, it’s parsnips, sweet potatoes, and squash for autumn vegetable soups. You can talk with your kids about those seasons and talk about celebrating each one.

All season long, there’s fresh-baked bread, homemade jams and other goodies, and fresh cut bouquets of flowers. Many markets also sell arts and crafts.

Several locations have food trucks if you’d like to grab a pizza dinner or an ice cream cone while you shop. Several locations also offer live music – usually of the folk or bluegrass variety, and can be a nice opportunity for a family picnic while the kids dance around.

Bring re-useable bags along when you come, and bring cash. (Although most vendors do take credit cards.)

2025 Markets on the Eastside

Here’s the 2025 summer schedule for markets on the Eastside of Seattle

Tuesdays:

Wednesdays

Thursdays

Fridays

Saturdays

Sundays

Here’s a list of farmer’s markets in Snohomish County: https://www.themadronagroup.com/snohomish-county-farmers-markets-list/

For more outdoor activities in the greater Seattle area, check out my posts on Outdoor Summer Movies 2025, Outdoor Theater 2025, Parks with Industrial Artifacts, Lesser Known Parks on the Eastside, and Summer Camps for Kids.

For lots more ideas on fun, cheap activities to do with your toddler, click on “toddler date” in the categories list to the right sidebar (or scroll down on mobile device.) Also, learn about parent-child classes for families with kids birth to age 8.

photo credit: NatalieMaynor via photopin cc

Cheap Dates with Toddlers: Garage Sales

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Any Friday or Saturday, drive around a residential neighborhood, and you’ll see the signs.

In winter, after my kids finish their scheduled activity, whether it’s dance class or coop preschool, I usually just want to go home when we’re done, back to a warm dry house. But in the spring time when the weather is beautiful, sometimes I just want to be out for a little while longer. Garage sales offer an easy opportunity.

I will pick a sign to follow, and see where we end up. We then walk around and look at things. Sometimes you have a total dud of a garage sale, when there’s nothing that appeals to anyone in the family. But, much more often, you’ll find something that you child thinks is a treasure. Once my daughter found a great tie-dyed jumper for $1.00 – it was a little big on her then, but it ended up becoming her favorite sun-dress not just that summer but for two or three summers to come. My son found a Japanese tea set he fell in love with. We found some great stuffed animals, some DVD’s, some books, a bike…

Now, I’m not a big fan of a lot of clutter in my life, so I’m always very clear that each child can pick out a MAXIMUM of one item. And sometimes we don’t find anything to bring home. Our approach was always that it’s more about the process than the product. It’s just interesting to see what things people are casting out of their lives. As my kids got older, it was interesting to pontificate on the family’s story. We would guess how old their kids were now based on what types of kid stuff they decided they’d outgrown. We found it sad when there was an older woman selling lots of men’s clothes and items, and wondered if her husband had recently passed. Sometimes we walked away wondering: why would anyone ever buy those items in the first place???

A garage sale is usually a quick outing – 15 minute or so, but often just a fun moment of serendipity in a day.

photo credit: Nomadic Lass via photopin cc

Cheap Dates with Toddlers: Nature “Shopping” and scavenger hunts

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Are the long months of winter/spring/rainy season getting to you and your kids? Are your kids starting to make you crazy? Here’s a quote I love:

“If your kids are bouncing off the walls, remove the walls.”

Even if it’s pouring rain, you can still go out in nature. That’s what rain coats and boots are for! On especially rainy days, I like going for hikes in the woods, where the trees help to shelter you from the worst of the rain.

Try Nature “shopping”

Take your kids out in the woods, and let them make collections. They can gather rocks, or seashells, or autumn leaves, or pinecones. Whatever they choose. As you explore, let them gather as many as they want (you may even choose to bring along a bucket or bag for them to collect into.) Near the end of your hike, pick a sheltered spot to examine the collection. Talk about colors, sizes, shapes, textures. Compare and contrast them. Sort them into categories. (Not only is all this fun for kids, you’re also teaching some foundational skills for science learning here… did you know that many Nobel winning scientists talk about the time they spent exploring nature as a child as one of their fundamental learning experiences?)

When you’re done examining them all, tell your child they may choose one special item to take home, but that you will leave all the other items out in nature. Remind them that these things serve a homes for animals and are also there for other children to see and discover. [Note: it helps to tell your child at the beginning of the process that they will need to leave most of these items in the park at the end of your time there.]

Collecting photos

You could also tell your child that you want to collect photos to make a nature book with. Tell them that on your walk, they should point out to you anything they think is special, and you will take a picture of it. Later on, it’s easy to do some quick cut and pasting into a word document or whatever to make up a page with a collection of photos that you can print and post at home. (If your child wants to take the pictures, check out these tips.)

Note: if your child wants to collect bugs, this may be a way to satisfy them without letting them pick up and carry the bugs home!

Scavenger Hunts

For ages 3 and up, you can prepare a list of things you would expect to be able to see or hear or do on your outing. Bring stickers along and as you’re out on an adventure, any time you find one of the items on the list, your child can put a sticker on it. Then when the scavenger hunt is complete, you can have a snack together as a reward. Ideas for scavenger hunts (some borrowed from Teacher Ann at Tiny Treks… )

  • Things to listen for: crows, woodpeckers, running water, wind in the leaves, people’s voices in the distance
  • Things to look for: pinecones, mushrooms, ferns, moss, spider web, bugs
  • Things to do: balance on a log, jump off a log, splash in a puddle, throw a rock in a stream, build a ‘log house’ with sticks, make a circle of rocks

If you’re in the Pacific Northwest, I have a series of handouts about plants you’ll find in our woods, and a scavenger hunt where kids search for salal, Oregon grape and more. Find them all here.

I find that being inside with my toddler and trying to encourage him to use his inside voice and inside manners all the time can be exhausting. Letting him run outside and be as loud as he wants is such a relief. Both of us feel much better after our time outside.

There’s also lots of other great benefits to outdoor time.

Cheap Dates with Toddlers: Buses and Trains

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If you use these all the time, they’re probably not that exciting for you or your child. However, if you don’t regularly use these, you can convince your child that a ride on public transit is almost as special as Disneyland!

Plan a short simple outing at non-peak travel times, and get a transfer when you board – you’ll be able to ride back out for the single fare.

You can choose to take transit to a special destination. (Even something as simple as a shopping center with an ice cream shop.) Or you can just go on a ride, focusing on enjoying the journey, not a destination.

Things to Do on the Trip:

  • Gaze out the window and talk about what you see.
  • Play I-Spy.
  • Do a scavenger hunt or travel bingo, looking for things like stop signs, blinking lights, and so on.
  • for older children who know their alphabet: first find an A (on a sign, license plate, etc.) then a B and so on. See if you can complete the alphabet.
  • Many transit stations feature public art – check it out!
  • This post covers the new light rail on Seattle’s Eastside and fun kid attractions along the way.

Here are lots of train related adventures in the Seattle area. #5 is the monorail, #6 is the Seattle streetcar, 7 is light rail, 8 is the Sounder.