Hi Mary,
I have a DD who is 28 months old, perhaps we can share ideas and tips as we will have some similarities. My daughter also likes the iPad and plays several games/puzzles on it, probably some of the ones your daughter plays.
Forget the age recs and just try things.
Ours does go to daycare which I think she finds very entertaining with the other kids. I'm in grad school and have a flexible schedule, so now trying to figure out where we go in terms of preschool etc. The daycare gives me some ideas as she often comes home with crafts she did, but I have also started getting more active in my looking for things.
This past week I made cornstarch color bags and oobleck (cornstarch goo) for her to play with, the first took a little more time to prep and the second is super easy but messier for her. I threw an adult t-shirt on her and let her play.
She's had play-doh for a long time, maybe since just over a year. We had to first make sure she wouldn't eat it.
Buy lots of stickers, paper, markers, coloring books and let her sticker, color, and draw.
I have been getting LOTS of books out from the library for her to read with me.
Melissa and Doug make wooden jigsaw (real) puzzles of varying piece #s
Get her a set of kids' wooden beads and string them. These should be supervised, we keep them out of reach when not playing this for both DD and our younger DD's sake.
Make or get a felt board, and then create felt shapes to put on them. A friend made ours for DD's birthday along with several themes (snowman, apple tree, itsy bitsy spider, etc).
There are similar options with dress up magnetic dolls.
Get a play kitchen with either wooden or plastic toy foods, we've had this for a long time as well after she played with one at 14 months in someone else's house.
Hope these are a few ideas for today. I'm happy to keep talking with you.
