How can I play with my two year old?

Question

From the time my son was born he was an independent child. He's never really played with me, but since my husband loves to rough house he will play with my husband. I try to get down there with him and play cars or trucks or even color with him. He loses interest or starts wanting to color on things that are not to be colored on. :)

Anyhow my question is what can I do to play with my two year old? How can I start teaching him things like ABCs and colors and still let him be a kid? What do you do when your child doesn't seem interested in playing with you when you are making an effort to daily have play time with them?

Answer 1

A game i did with my little one for colors  was I collected 20 oz drinking bottles and covered them with construction paper. And had a nurf ball for her to throw and knck down. Started of just teaching the basic game of trying to knock down all the bottles with 2 balls to win. But then started focusing on the colors. Like you can set up three diffrent colored bottles and tell him to throw the ball at the blue bottle , and so on. Its fun!!

Answer 2

See what kind of activities he is interested in, what he does when he plays with his father. I play very often with the 3 years old daughter of some friends, and we usually play with a football. She never seems to get enough of it :)

Answer 3

Try taking him to a park or getting him a small wading pool.  My two year old loves both of those things.  You can chase him around the park, help him climb, push him on the swings, or even get in the pool with him and splash around.

As far as teaching him his ABC's, find an alphabet book that he likes.  I suggest Dr Seuss's ABC.  My daughter has loved that book since long before she was old enough to even know what I was saying.  And by 14 months she was starting to recognize the letters herself.  Now at 2, she knows most of them.  As soon as i turn the page, she says, "That's an A!  YAAAAAY!"  She's very proud of herself and it has worked well for her.