Action words for toddlers: 40 first verbs to teach in English through play

Action words for toddlers are the verbs your child can see, feel and do: eat, sleep, go, jump, open, hug. Pick a handful from your day, say each one while you do it together, and soon your child can tell you what they want to do, not only what they see.

Names of things are a great start, but action words make things happen. “Ball” names the ball. “Throw!” sends it across the room. With a few verbs, your child can ask for a game, tell you what the dog is doing and make their very first little sentences.

Here are 40 first action words in four groups, games that take five minutes, verbs for everyday routines, how to join actions with names, pairs in English and Spanish, ideas for ages 2, 3 and 4, and a few common mistakes to skip.

Action words for toddlers: why they matter for first phrases

Listen to a toddler’s first two-word phrases and you’ll hear action words everywhere: “Daddy go,” “eat cookie,” “more jump,” “baby sleep.” A name tells you who or what. The action tells you what’s happening. Put them together and your child has a tiny sentence.

Action words are also some of the easiest words to show. You can’t point at “go,” but you can go. You can’t hold up “sleep,” but you can lie down, close your eyes and snore loudly. When your whole body does the word, your child sees it, feels it and hears it at the same time, and that gives the word plenty to hold on to.

And action words get results. When your child says “up” and gets lifted, or says “open” and the snack bag opens, that word has done its job. A word that works is a word your child wants to use again tomorrow.

Action words fit right next to the names and describing words your child is learning. If you’re building a bigger word plan, our guide on how to teach vocabulary to toddlers shows how all three grow together.

The first action words: eat, sleep, go, jump

If you only pick four action words this week, make them eat, sleep, go and jump. They happen every day, they’re short and easy to say, and each one comes with a big, clear movement your child can copy.

• eat. At every meal and snack: “Let’s eat! Teddy eats too. Yum!”
• sleep. At nap time, at bedtime and in pretend: “Shh, the doll is sleeping.”
• go. At the door, in the car, in races across the room: “Ready, set, go!”
• jump. On the floor, in puddles, off the bottom step: “Jump, jump, jump!”

Once those feel easy, here are 40 first action words in four groups. You don’t need all of them. Choose five that fit your home, and add one or two new ones each week.

A few of these, like “wake up,” are two words. That’s fine. Toddlers learn little chunks like “wake up,” “sit down” and “all done” as one piece, the same way they learn a single word. For more first words in every group, see our toddler word list.

Action words you can act out

The best way to teach an action word is to do it. There are three easy ways, and you can use all of them in one day:

• Do it yourself and say it. “I’m jumping! Jump, jump, jump.” Your child watches the action and hears the word at the same moment.
• Say it while your child does it. “You’re climbing! Climb, climb, climb. You did it!” Now the word belongs to their own body.
• Make a toy do it. “The car goes. Go, car, go!” “Bunny is hopping. Hop, hop, hop.” Toys are great for actions your child can’t do right now, like “fly” or “swim.”

Keep the sentences short, and say the action word more than once. Put it at the end of the sentence, where it’s easy to hear: “Look, the dog can run. Run!” When you say the word slowly and clearly, with a little pause after it, your child has room to try it too.

You don’t have to choose between “jump” and “jumping.” Use both, the way you naturally would: “You’re jumping! Jump again!” Your child hears the plain word, the “-ing” word and a real sentence all at once.

Pictures and books help too. A picture book with animals that run, jump and sleep, or a few action word pictures on the fridge, gives you more chances to say the words. They work best after the real action: jump first, then find the picture of the jumping frog. If you like using cards, our post on whether flashcards are good for toddlers shows how to keep them playful.

Action games for five minutes

Action words love games, because games need moving, and moving needs words. Each of these takes about five minutes and works in a living room:

• Copy me. You do an action and say it: “Clap!” Your child copies. Then swap, and your child leads. Toddlers love being the boss of the game, and saying the word is how they get to be the boss.
• Stop and go. Walk across the room saying “go, go, go,” then freeze on “stop!” Try it with running, dancing and crawling. Once your child knows the game, let them shout “stop” and “go” for you.
• Freeze dance. Play a song, dance, and freeze when the music stops. Name the dance moves as you go: “Spin! Jump! Wiggle!”
• Teddy says. Hold up a teddy and give gentle orders in its voice: “Teddy says sit! Teddy says clap!” For toddlers, skip the tricky rules and just do every action.
• Can bunny do it? Ask about a toy: “Can bunny jump? Yes! Can bunny sleep? Yes! Can bunny drive?” Silly questions get big laughs and lots of action words.
• What am I doing? For older toddlers: you act something out without words, like eating or brushing your teeth, and your child guesses. “You’re eating!”

Play one game at a time, and stop while it’s still fun. Five happy minutes do more than twenty tired ones, and a game that ends on a laugh is a game your child asks for again.

Action words in daily routines

Your day is already full of action words. The trick is to say the same one at the same moment, every time, so it becomes part of the routine:

• Morning: wake up, stretch, wash, brush. “Wake up, sleepyhead! Stretch up high!”
• Meals: eat, drink, pour, wipe. “Drink your milk. Now wipe your hands.”
• Getting dressed: put on, take off, push, pull. “Push your arm in. Pull up your pants!”
• Outside: walk, run, climb, swing. “Let’s walk to the park. Now run!”
• Bath: splash, wash, pour. “Pour the water. Splash, splash!”
• Bedtime: read, hug, kiss, sleep. “Let’s read one book. Hug! Now sleep.”

You don’t need to change your day to fit English in. Pick one moment, like bath time, and use the same two or three action words there every day for a week. When those feel easy, add another moment. For a full day of simple routine words, see our guide to the daily routine in English.

Joining action words with names

Once your child knows a few names and a few actions, they can start putting them together. Two-word phrases usually come in two shapes:

• A name and an action: “Daddy go,” “baby sleep,” “doggy run,” “me jump.”
• An action and a thing: “eat apple,” “open door,” “throw ball,” “read book.”

You can help by adding just one word to whatever your child says. If your child says “jump,” you say “Jump high!” If they say “Daddy go,” you say “Yes, Daddy is going to work.” You aren’t correcting anything. You’re showing the next step, one word longer than theirs.

Questions help too, especially questions with a choice: “Do you want to jump or run?” Your child can answer with an action word, and the answer gets them the game they want. Questions about what someone is doing work well with pictures and with real life: “What is the cat doing? The cat is sleeping!”

Family names make great partners for action words, because your child cares about what those people do: “Grandma is cooking,” “Sister is dancing,” “Mommy is sleeping… or is she?” For more short phrases to use every day, see our list of English phrases for toddlers.

Action words in English and Spanish

In a bilingual home, the same action may have two words: “jump” and “saltar,” “eat” and “comer.” Your child may use whichever one is easier to say, and that can change from word to word. Plenty of toddlers say “jump” in English but “agua” in Spanish, and mix the two in one phrase: “Mami, jump!” That’s very common and nothing to fix.

You can keep things simple in two ways. Use one language for one activity, like English for the dance game and Spanish at dinner. Or say both, one after the other: “Jump! Salta!” Both work. What matters most is saying the words often, in real moments, with the action right there.

One fun mix-up to watch for: in Spanish, “come” means “eat,” but in English it means “ven.” If your child says “come!” at dinner, they may simply be telling you to eat. For more ideas on keeping two languages relaxed at home, see how to raise a bilingual child.

Action words at 2, 3 and 4

Every child moves at their own pace, so think of these as ideas to try, not a list to check off.

At 2. Short words with big movements: “up,” “go,” “eat,” “sleep,” “jump.” Many children understand far more actions than they say. If your child jumps when you say “jump,” they know the word, even if they don’t say it yet. Keep acting out the words and leave little pauses for them to join in.

At 3. Two- and three-word phrases: “I jump high,” “Teddy is sleeping,” “Daddy go work.” This is a great age for “-ing” words, like running and eating, and for simple games with rules, like freeze dance and Teddy says. You may also hear first past words: “fell down,” “all done.”

At 4. More exact actions: tiptoe, gallop, whisper, pour, build. Four-year-olds love telling what happened: “First we ran, then we jumped in the puddle!” Ask about the day, “What did you do at the park?”, and help them tell it in order. Words like “can” and “can’t” join in too: “I can hop on one foot!”

Common mistakes (and what to do instead)

• Teaching action words only from pictures. A picture of a jumping frog is fun, but jumping is better. Do the action first, then look at the picture together.
• Turning it into a quiz. “What is he doing? What is he doing?” quickly feels like a test. Say what’s happening instead: “He’s running! Look at him run.” Your child will join in when they’re ready.
• Using action words only as orders. If “sit,” “stop” and “eat” only come as rules, they can start to feel like rules. Use them in play and about yourself too: “I’m sitting on the big chair!” “Teddy can’t stop dancing!”
• Correcting every mistake. If your child says “I runned,” say it back the right way, warmly: “Yes, you ran so fast!” No need to ask them to repeat it.
• Adding too many new words at once. Ten new verbs in one day are hard to keep. Five words used every day for a week stick much better.
• Waiting for your child to sit still. Action words are learned on the move. A toddler who won’t sit for a book may happily play stop and go for five minutes.

Where Tatako fits

Tatako’s short spoken lessons cover the 369 first words and phrases in 72 lessons, from people, food and animals to colors, actions and what the teacher says at preschool. Each lesson takes about five minutes, with nothing to read.

The lesson rhythm is the same one you use in Copy me. Your child hears each word three times, with a pause to say it out loud. Next come two pictures, and your little one touches the one they hear. Finally the picture comes back without the word, and your child gets to name it first. Afterward, a grown-up spends about two minutes marking how each word went (New, Repeat more, Understands or Can say), and the next lesson brings the shaky words back first. You choose how many old and new words go into each lesson.

There’s also a Spanish guide voice that explains what to do, which you can turn off once you don’t need it. Lessons run in the browser, and you sign in with Google. The lessons give your child the words; the living room gives them the jumping, and the two work nicely together. Learn more on the Tatako home page.

Questions parents ask

Which action words should a toddler learn first?

Start with actions from your day that come with a big movement: eat, sleep, go, jump, open, up and stop. Pick the ones your child already sees often, and say them at the same moments every day.

Can action words be among a toddler’s first words?

Yes. Many toddlers have a few action words early on, like “up,” “go” or “bye-bye,” next to names like “mama” and “ball.” Action words are easy to show and they get things done, so they often come along early.

How do I teach action words to a toddler who won’t sit still?

Don’t ask them to sit. Action words are perfect for busy toddlers, because the moving is the lesson. Name what your child is already doing: “You’re running! You’re climbing! Now you’re spinning!” Then try a game like stop and go.

Should I teach action words in English and Spanish together?

You can. Some families say both, “Jump! Salta!”, and others use one language per activity. Either way is fine. Use the words often, in real moments, and let your child mix the two languages while they’re learning.

How do action words help my child make sentences?

An action word is the middle of most little sentences. Once your child knows “eat” and “apple,” they can say “eat apple.” Add “Daddy” and “go,” and they can tell you “Daddy go.” Each new action word opens up many new phrases.

Action words turn names into stories: the dog runs, the baby sleeps, Daddy goes. Start with four, say them while you move together and add a new one when the old ones feel easy. And when you want a short, calm English lesson to go with all that jumping, start a Tatako lesson together.