The best educational toys for toddlers

I love buying toys for my six grandchildren. As a “Nana” I feel that it is my right to spoil them. As a former teacher, however, I try to include a lot of educational toys. A good educational toy provides entertainment and teaching. Kids learn while having fun, without even realizing it.

Perhaps the most important learning stage in a child’s life is the toddler period. Their brains are like sponges between the ages of one and four, and that’s the perfect time for them to learn social, sensory, construction and speaking skills, coordination, thinking strategies, manipulation and visual conception. The correct educational toys can improve all of these important skills. Here are some of my favorite educational toys.

Blocks

Blocks are great for babies 6-12 months old. It helps them learn manipulation and coordination skills and helps improve sensory and construction skills. Blocks for this age should be large, soft and easy to handle. Older toddlers need brightly colored blocks that are a little smaller and in different shapes to improve visual conception and recognition.

Nesting and stacking toys

These come in bright-colored rings, squares, house-shapes and other shapes. They’re in graduated sizes that stack on top of each other or fit inside each other. These are very educational toys, teaching manipulation, visual conception and construction skills in babies one to two-years-old. Older toddlers will also learn counting skills, color recognition and other visual conception skills like comparing small to large.

Puzzles

Puzzles come in a huge variety of sizes, colors and types. Depending on the style, and the size and difficulty of the pieces, they’re appropriate for any age. Puzzles improve shape recognition, thinking strategies, manipulation and coordination.

Shape sorters

Any shape sorter is educational, but the best ones reward the child by music, verbal clues or visual clues when they place the correct shape in the correlating space. A more advanced shape sorter requires the child to match not only the correct shape but also the correct color. These improve shape and color recognition, thinking strategies, manipulation, coordination and visual conception. With the “reward” the child also learns cause and effect. Shape sorters are appropriate for ages 12 months and up.

ABC-number school bus

My grandchildren have one of these toys, and they love it. On one side of the bus are the letters of the alphabet, and on the other side are numbers. When the child presses a letter or number, the bus driver announces it. This educational toy is great for teaching number and letter recognition, sensory skills and manipulation. It also helps improve social, communication and speaking skills, and cause and effect. The bus is for ages one to three.

Dolls

All babies and toddlers should have some sort of cuddly doll or stuffed animal. They offer companionship and security and help teach social and communication skills. For all ages.

Make believe

Please buy toys for your children that encourage imagination and playing with others. Toddlers two to four love costumes, role playing, play kitchens, making animals out of PLAY-DOH and drawing and painting. They learn so much from such play: social, communication and speaking skills, and creativity and visual conception.

Books!

Maybe this is just the teacher in me, but the most important “toys” you can buy for your child are books, and they’re probably the most educational toy available. Children are never too young or too old for books. Research shows that even unborn babies benefit from being read to. You should read daily to your child, with his first books being short and simple with colorful pages.

At six months, add books with different textures for the child to feel. As your baby develops, you might want to add talking books, pop-up books or books that require some sort of manipulation. Books teach and improve many skills, including social, communication and speaking. Certain types of books can also improve sensory skills, manipulation, thinking strategies and visual conceptions like recognizing shapes, colors, letters and comparisons like big and small, slow and fast, rough and smooth, and tall and short.

When purchasing toys for your children, keep learning skills in mind. It isn’t difficult to make all their toys educational toys. Just be sure to offer a wide range of toys that address several skills. And remember: Read to your child!

This period in your toddler’s life is so important for learning. If children don’t master certain skills at this age, they’ll always struggle with them later. Your toddler’s brain is “programmed” for learning. Do him a favor and take advantage of the opportunity now. You’ll be glad in the long run that you took a little extra time and effort.