Cognitive skills, fine motor skills, gross motor skills and social skills are main things that should be developed in your child at this age. Educational toys for 2-year-olds are designed to promote early learning and development in toddlers. These toys are typically designed to be age-appropriate and engage children in activities that enhance their cognitive, motor, and social skills while making learning fun and interactive.
The first few years of a child’s life are a critical period for brain development. Early experiences and interactions shape the brain’s architecture, impacting a child’s cognitive, emotional, and social development. It helps children acquire essential skills, such as language, math, and problem-solving, setting them up for success in school and beyond.
Early exposure to learning fosters a love for learning that can last a lifetime. It instills a curiosity and thirst for knowledge that can benefit a child throughout their education and career. You should consider following points when you choose learning and development toys for 2 year olds.
Importance of Age-appropriate Toys
Age-appropriate toys are designed to challenge and engage children at the right level for their developmental stage. Toys that are suitable for a child’s age are more likely to meet safety standards and reduce the risk of accidents or choking hazards, ensuring a child’s physical well-being. These toys are less likely to be frustrating for a child, as they match the child’s developmental abilities. This can lead to a more positive and enjoyable play experience. While choosing educational toys for 2 year olds, you need to choose different toys in such a way that they help to develop all the essential skills that should be developed in toddlers.
Cognitive Development In 2-year-olds
Two-year-olds experience a rapid expansion of their vocabulary and language skills. They start to form simple sentences, understand and use pronouns, and engage in more complex conversations. They also begin to comprehend basic concepts like colors, shapes, and sizes.
At the two years old, their memory and problem solving skills are increasing, so it is enabling them to remember routings then they start to follow simple instruction. 2 years old child can solve basic problems like finding a hidden toy. Two year olds often engage in pretend play, Sometimes building block could become a phone or a car. They could be symbolize a family member using a toy. Now they can recognize size, color and shape. They are able to categorize objects by simple attributes like color and size. These 2-year-olds demontrate imagination and creativity, they tell stories created by them and they can draw simple artworks. Babies starting to understand cause-and-effect relationship through experiments. In the previous article we have introduced pop-up toy for 1 year olds. It was the early start of understanding cause-and-effect at that age. They would like to see what happens when they push a button, drop an object, or pour water. Additionally, they become more aware of their physical surroundings, developing basic spatial skills, which allow them to engage in simple puzzles, stack blocks, and understand concepts like “in” and “on.”
Still they have short attention span, it has increased compared to their earlier years. Their ability to engage in structured play and activities increases. At this age some children may even begin to recognize and name numbers, as well as count objects. 2 year old child is fully curious about their surrounding environment and they continually ask “why” and “what” questions as they seek to understand the world around them.
Fine Motor Skills And Gross Motor Skills
In 2-year-olds, fine motor skills involve improving hand-eye coordination, using a pincer grasp for small objects, and starting to draw or self-feed. Gross motor skills include walking confidently, climbing, running, and engaging in activities like kicking a ball or pedaling a tricycle. These physical abilities develop at different rates for each child, so it’s essential to provide opportunities for both fine and gross motor skill development to support their growth and independence.
Apart from that, sensory exploration, language and communication, social and emotional development, creativity and imagination should be developed in a child of this age.
1. Gardening Tool Set
Garden tools are great way to develop kids sense of nature. kids get a lot of fun with garden digging, planting, or sand playing on the beach. Gardening tool set is a good choice among learning kits for 2 year olds.
2. LEGO DUPLO Building Sets & Bricks
Lego is a platform that help to build innovative things. DUPLO® bricks are designed to improve assembling specific structure that will help your toddler foster imagination while developing creativity, sensory and fine motor skills.
Lego has different sets for different ages. As the child grows older, the necessary kits can be provided gradually.
3. Pretend Play Toys
A child’s imagination will be sparked and developed through pretend play. The act of pretending to be somebody else or creating imaginary scenarios encourages imaginative thought. Kids are able to develop essential social skills like sharing, taking turns, and working together with others through the use of role-playing. These abilities are essential for having positive connections with other people. As kids express their thoughts, negotiate roles, and converse with others, pretend play promotes the use of language.
Dressing up and pretend play start at around 15-18 months. Your toddler might enjoy pretending to be a grown-up, using props like old clothes and hats.
Reference: https://raisingchildren.net.au/
Kitchen With Fruits And Vegetables
These vegetables can be cut into pieces like real ones. kids can have lot of fun with this Pretend Cookware set.
The knife “cutting” makes a great chopping sound because of the fasteners holding it together & Kids Love this slicing sound!
Tool Set For Toddlers
This is an essential pretend play set for two year olds.
Children can pound nails, saw wood, tighten screws, use a wrench, explore various tools and learn how each tool works, which is beneficial to develop their fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination.
4. Color Learning Toys
Even though they probably won’t be able to fully understand and retain the concept of colors until around 18 months, it’s a good idea to start teaching it early on. Don’t use too many colors at once that your child can’t handle. Pay attention to two at a time, and as they get better at those, add more. When you see those two colors, tell your child what they are. Don’t name any other colors yet. You might decide to teach your child red and green first. Point out anything red or green you see. At certain times, only give them red and green things to play with.
Avoid Contrasting Colors
It’s good to use colors that are not at all similar to each other so you should not confuse your toddler. When they are learning, things with colors that are different from each other will stand out more.
For example, when you are teaching colors side by side, don’t put blue and purple together, red and orange, red and pink, etc. Colors that match well with contrast are [red, green], [blue, yellow], [purple, green] and [black, white]. There are a lot more ways to put them together.
Also, sometimes certain shades of a color will be closely related like a yellowish green will look similar to yellow or a turquoise could look closer to a green or blue. Try to stick to the basic primary colors like red, green, blue, yellow, orange, back and white.
Use Small, Colorful Objects For Sorting
This is a simple learning toy, exercise motor skills, hand eye coordination, shape and color matching through simple movements. They love using fun, simple objects for teaching colors and counting. Kids enjoy grouping and sorting the shapes by color and puts them into the correct pile.
First you can use this to teach colors and shapes. When child leaned basic shapes and colors then use it for sorting and grouping. Putting something in a bowl and taking it back is a very important activity that should be done by a child at 1-2 years old.
Color puzzles
Puzzles serve as excellent tools for developing language, cognition, and fine motor skills. During playtime, you can verbally labels each color as the child places a piece on the board. This repetition helps the child associate the color names with what they observe, contributing to their learning experience.
This color puzzle is using only fish, so your child won’t have to focus on the pictures on the puzzle, It’s easy to just pay attention to the colors.
5. Finger Paint Kit For Toddlers
Undoubtedly, Finger painting is a favorite activity of toddlers. It is stimulating creativity and sensory development of your child.
6. Snap-n-Learn™ Matching Dinos
Kids build brand-new matching skills when they mix and match this set of 9 colorful dinosaurs. Sort and match these two-piece dinos by color, species, or the shapes printed on their backs.
Specially designed with little ones in mind, the Snap-n-Learn Matching Dinos help kids as young as 18 months build essential fine motor skills!
7. John Deere Build-A-Johnny Tractor Toy
This is a creative STEM building toy with 16 pieces to assemble.
The Build-A-Buddy line has received both STEAM Accreditation by the Toy Association and a Good Toy Guide Recommendation, making it a great toddler gift for kids 18 months and up.
8. Inflatable Jumping & Bouncer Riding Horse
Toddlers will have lot of fun with this Bouncer Riding Horse. While this they helps to the development of motor skills, coordination in toddlers. Please be aware of the size if you buy it online. Some horses are too small for children to ride. You can check AppleRound Horse Bouncer because it is good in size.
9. Vehicle Toys
Usually toddlers love to play with any kind of vehicle toys.
10. Toys Wagon
Any toddler love to putting things into their wagon! This encourages gross motor skills, fine motor skills development and imaginative play.
Wooden wagon also a good choice.
11. Puzzle For Toddlers
A puzzle can give your child the opportunity to work on a single task for a long period of time uninterrupted. Just make sure to choose an age-appropriate puzzle for your child — if it’s too hard for them, they might get impatient and give up! Puzzles are great for your child with their memory, and also help building hand-eye coordination skills. Puzzles help children learn to identify different shapes and where they fit into the puzzle. Knobbed puzzles are recommended to help improve the fine motor skills that they’ll use later at school like holding a pencil or paintbrush.
Puzzles are simple and fun! Strategy is needed to solve a puzzle, such as grouping pieces by color, grouping edged parts, forming the outline first, and flipping all the pieces over to face upwards to discover the next piece. This helps your toddler break down big chores into smaller ones, making them easier to handle. Your child will soon use strategic, logical thinking in other areas of life, such as finding a misplaced toy.
12. STEM Toys
STEM education is very popular in these days because it is a teaching philosophy that naturally integrates critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity in a way that enriches any subject. Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics are the main focus of this system. As a result, students in any subject can benefit from STEM education. That’s exactly why some educators and organizations refer to it as STEAM, which adds in arts or other creative subjects.
STEM Toys are cognitive toys for 2 year olds which supports and follow STEM education system. Children often acquire valuable skills and knowledge more effectively when engaged in learning through play, as it fosters a fun and interactive educational experience. You must focus on STEM toys when you selecting educational toys for 2 year olds.
13. Books For 2 Year Olds
Finding a good book for 2-year-olds can be a challenge. Because their attention spans are short, and they are not yet ready for long stories. We’ve put together a list of the best books for 2-year-olds that will keep them engaged and entertained. Best books for 2-year-olds →
14. Hand Puppets
Another great toy for toddlers is hand puppets, an interactive learning toy for 2 year olds. Puppets gives children an opportunity for role-playing that make them to explore new personalities, and ideas and develop their imagination. Puppets can build children’s communication and social skills by providing them structured opportunities to interact with.
15. A Tricycle
“Trikes are really the first tool that give kids the sense of moving forward,” says Judy Wang, a physical therapist in Los Angeles. They also help develop a child’s visual processing abilities while moving. List of best tricycles available in the market →
16. Ride-On Cars For Toddlers
Often these cars comes with musical device and some other interactive toys embedded with, so your child can have lot of fun and interaction with these cars.
In this article, we have provided you with a list of the most essential toys among popular educational toys for 2 year olds.