How to go about choosing toys for toddlers?

What criteria do you use to determine the gifts are appropriate for your child? This article provides suggestions for toys that will develop with your child, challenge her, and foster her cognitive, physical, language, and social-emotional abilities.

Toddlers are intriguing little people who learn by doing. Playing allows your child to learn and practise new skills at her own pace while chasing her interests. The educational toys for toddlers and playthings that your child has access can significantly impact her growth.

Guidelines for choosing toys for toddlers

• Toddlers love taking things apart, putting them back together, pulling things out, putting things back in, adding on, and building things up. Choose learning toys that are "open-ended," meaning that your child will use them to play various games. A lane, a zoo, a bridge, or a spaceship, for example, can be constructed using wooden or chunky plastic interlocking blocks. Toys like this help your child improve problem-solving and critical thought skills by igniting his imagination.

• We have all bought a toy that our kid uses for two days and then discards. To avoid this, search for toys that are enjoyable at various stages of growth. Small plastic animals, for example, can be used to create a shoebox house for a young child, while an older toddler can use them to play out a story she makes up.

• Your child's imagination grows during his third year when he learns to play the part of someone else and pretend that something is something else. Look for craft kits that your child can use to act out stories as he grows up. Pretend play develops language and reading skills, as well as problem-solving and sequencing capabilities.

• Your toddler is getting better at finding out how things in her environment, such as television remotes and light switches, operate. She also wants to play with your "real" things, such as your tablet, because she wants to be as big and capable as you. Problem-solving toys like this help children understand spatial relations (how things work together) and develop fine motor skills.

• Early writing and reading skills get developed using craft items such as books, magnetic alphabet letters, and art items such as markers, crayons, and fingerpaints. Take-out menus, catalogues, and magazines are "real-life" props that your child can look at and play with while also building familiarity with letters, text, and print.

• When their bodies get stronger and more secure, toddlers perform a variety of physical tricks. You must be a cheering section for your child's latest playground accomplishment! Look for baby learning toys that will allow your child to exercise and improve existing physical skills.

Many toddler toys are ablaze with buttons, levers, lights, music, and so on. Since the toy has so many different features, it gets often branded as "developmental." Unfortunately for the child, this usually has the opposite effect. The more functions a toy has, the less work your child would have to do. If your child sits and watch the toy "perform," it is more likely to be amusing rather than educational. Furthermore, these toys may be perplexing to a child studying cause-and-effect relationships.