5 Age Appropriate Toys For 2 Year Olds

age appropriate toys for 2 year olds

When my son’s 2ndbirthday started drawing closer I began my search for new toys to gift him. I realized that we had every kind of toy in each category and he still enjoyed playing with his toys. I was lost for ideas and ended up researching age appropriate toys for 2 year olds and found new suggestions to meet the gap in our current toy collection. Each of these toys focuses on his current developmental needs.

By 2 years of age, most toddlers have a varied vocabulary and advanced motor skills. They are rapidly learning from their environment so pretend play and mimicking adults take center stage as forms of play.

At the same time Toys for 1 year olds like Balls, Vehicles, kitchen and coloring sets will continue to be a favorite with this age group.

These days the market is flooded with toys for kids and it can be overwhelming for parents to decide on which toys to buy. But a look at the current toys your child enjoys coupled with new skills he exhibits should help you decide on what toys to buy.

 

age appropriate toys

AGE APPROPRIATE TOYS FOR 2 YEAR OLDS

  1. Puzzles

At age 2 toddlers are beginning to get familiar with matching objects and recognizing patterns. Introducing a variety of toddler-friendly puzzles is a great way to help with memory building and developing motor skills. Knob puzzles help develop fine motor skills in 2 year olds. Other than knob puzzles look for puzzles that allow for some sort of grading, sequencing or pattern recognition. All these types of puzzles aid early math skills.

Recommendations

Skillofun Wooden Identification Tray Fruits

Melissa And Doug Sea Life Jigsaw Puzzle

 

  1. Cleaning Set

Pretend play plays a huge role in toddler development. While a play kitchen set teaches them about food, cooking, social etiquette around the table. A cleaning set shows them how to care for their environment by cleaning up after they are done playing. Introducing such toys is a way to instill a sense of responsibility towards household chores.

Recommendations

Brainsmith Spic And Span Set

 

  1. Busy Books

2 to 2 and a half years of age is a good time to introduce busy books. These books contain pages of activities a toddler can complete on his own. They need guidance at first, but once familiar with the activities on each page they continue playing on their own. Busy books encourage independent play and teach a variety of concepts depending on the topic of the book.

Recommendations

Cubs And Calves Unicorn Quiet Book

Cubs And Calves Oh Boy Quiet Book

 

  1. Play-Doh

Play-doh encourages creativity, imagination, and conversation through pretend play. Making different shapes, pretend kitchen utensils or animals improves hand-eye coordination and motor skills.  Age 2 is the best time to introduce play-doh because children are no longer mouthing toys and understand instruction on how to use it. Caution: Always use play-doh under adult supervision.

Recommendations

Play-doh Classic Fun Factory Set

Eco Kids Natural Plant Dye Modelling Dough

 

  1. Musical Toys

2 year olds have a greater appreciation for music. You will find your toddler swinging to his favorite songs and walking around the house singing nursery rhymes.  Musical toys are therefore one of the most age appropriate toys for 2 year olds. Some musical toys that aren’t as irritating to the adult ears are listed below;

Recommendations

VTech KidiBeats Drum Set

Hape Wooden Little Drummer

 

age appropriate toys for 2 year olds

Previous book and toy recommendations

Toys for the first year

Toys for 1 year olds

Books for the first year

Books for 1 year olds

 

I hope you found this list useful and find new toy ideas to gift your 2 year olds. Leave me a comment below on what toys your 2 year olds like playing with? For more fun recommendations and reviews follow me on Instagram where I share our experiences with different toys, activities and other baby products.

Feature image by, Moose Photos via Pexels.com

This blogpost contains affiliate links. These links provide me with a small percentage commission but don’t cost you anything extra.

Learning With Age Appropriate Toys: A Skola Toys Review

age appropriate toys-skola toys

Finding the most age appropriate toys for little ones is what every parent wants. We want our children to learn through play since it is the most effective way to help a child understand concepts. If you are wondering how to select such age appropriate toys for your children you can check my last blog post on the same.

This post is sponsored by Skola Toys. But all views and opinions expressed are my own.

Skola Toys is one such wooden learning toys company that is known to make developmentally appropriate toys. They have developed toys that take the child through learning journeys designed as play. The different learning journeys explored by Skola Toys are Dexterity, Environment, Language, Numbers, Our World, and Cognition.

Review Skola Toys Pull Along Bus

I am always looking for age appropriate toys for my little one so I was quite excited to receive the Skola Toys Pull Along Shape Bus to review. This toy belongs to the learning journey through Motion. And is best suited for a 2-year-old.
age appropriate toys-skola toys review

Packaging

The first thing I noticed was the box the toy was sent in. It had lovely doodle design all over. The box itself is so decorative and fun, I imagine buying a Skola toy and gifting a child the same without any gift wrapping needed, just this lovely box. You also get a complimentary set of crayons with your toy along with an instruction manual on how to use the toy in different ways. All these simple touches add to the customer experience when receiving the product.

What I like about the Skola Toys Pull Along Bus

  1. The pull along toy is a bright orange colored bus that is made of lightweight wood. The fact that the wood is light in weight is important because my son finds it easier to maneuver the bus. The color orange is also quite attractive to a toddler.
  2. Skola toys are made of wood, sourced from renewable sources, making them natural and environment-friendly. The toys are compliant with international safety standards and paints used, conform to European EN-71 Part-3 guidelines for toys. If you want to know why it is important to consider these things when buying wooden toys you can read my post on toys for toddlers, where I speak about safe wooden materials for toys.
  3. The bus has rounded edges and no sharp parts that can scratch my son.
  4. The child learns about motion by applying external stimuli to set a toy in motion. This age group of children is just learning how they can cause an effect on things. By gripping on to the toy and pulling it along they learn about their role in setting a bus into motion. Pulling a toy and walking is challenging, but this type of challenge brings excitement to the child.
  5. This bus also doubles up as a shape sorter. The bright red colored shapes caught my son’s eyes immediately.

What can be changed

I am happy that we have companies like Skola Toys that are striving to provide quality learning toys for kids. On receiving this product I can see the thought that has gone into designing such a toy.

The only thing I would change about this toy will be the length of the thread. The thread is long for a 2-year-old to be able to maneuver around. I tied up a portion of the thread just to make the length more manageable for my son.

Everything else, from the wood to the paint and build quality of the toy was on the mark for me.
age appropriate toys-skola toys

Ways to play with the pull along bus

The same toy can be used in four different ways to encourage the child’s creativity and imagination.

Activity 1: Triggering Movement

Show the child how to hold the thread and pull the toy. Children start to try different variations of force to trigger the pull and put the shapes inside the box then removing them outside again to see how this changes things. All these variations teach them about cause and effect along with encouraging them to play more creatively.

Activity 2: Pull Along

The activity of pulling the toy and walking requires a lot of balance and skill. When the child looks back to see the bus follow, it excites them. They try harder eventually learning to pull along without toppling the bus over.

Activity 3: 2D-3D Connection

Trying to put the correct shapes in requires a lot of hand-eye coordination. An analysis and clear understanding of 2D and 3D association of shapes are needed.

Activity 4: Name Game

You can ask the child to name the different shapes as they get familiar with them.

Such type of open-ended toys allows the child to explore the toy in an in-depth manner making use of their own mental resources in order to work with the toy.

Price

₹945

Available at

Skola Toys website and Amazon

How do you select age appropriate toys for your little ones? Which toy is their favorite? Let me know in the comments below.

This post is sponsored by Skola Toys. But all views and opinions expressed are my own. I only review products that I would buy for my own family or have used in the past and loved.

This blogpost contains affiliate links. These links provide me with a small percentage commission but don’t cost you anything extra.