open ended toys

Loose Parts From Nature : Gifts for Open-Ended Play (and learning!)

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Read time: 8 minutes
Nature's loose parts

Open-ended toys are growing in popularity because they encourage a child’s creativity and problem-solving skills. Did you know that you can find free or inexpensive open-ended toys that your child will treasure? And, what’s more valuable is that many of these open-ended toys can be collected lovingly from nature? The kind of nature treasures that are available probably won’t surprise you (rocks, flowers, and shells, oh my!), but let’s take a whole new perspective on them today as I introduce you to Nature’s Loose Parts! Read on to know more about the value of loose parts, which one’s to find in nature, and some simple open-ended activities using Nature’s loose parts.

What are Loose Parts?

Loose parts are objects, in our case children’s play-things, that are free from a predefined use and can be moved, manipulated, and used in an endless variety of ways. This means that they are, by their very definition, open-ended toys. Some examples of loose parts are small cloth pieces, blocks, bowls, shells, and sticks. All of these objects have many possible uses: they can be stacked, lined up, tied together and they can be imagined into any kind of pretend object. For example, a stick can be a spoon, a sword, a wand, a pencil, or a broom; the possibilities are limited only to a child’s imagination!

The real value of adding loose parts into child’s play is providing them to children in open-ended activities and play. In this way, a child can determine what to use, how to use it, and the process of how to implement their decisions and goals, which involves a whole lot of thinking skills that are invaluable to their brain development.

A Quick Peek into Play and Brain Development

Open-ended play with open-ended toys, a.k.a. awesome loose parts, supports the development of executive function skills. Executive functions are like the CEO skills and tasks of the brain. These skills include organizing and planning, starting tasks and keeping focus, paying attention, regulating emotions, and self-monitoring. Just as a great CEO can lead a company to great success, well practiced and refined executive functions developed in a variety of experiences and with a lot of repetition (lots of play!), can lead a child to great success. In fact, executive functioning is an important predictor of school readiness in young children. Open-ended play supports executive functioning by:

  • Letting the child choose what to play with and how to play with it
  • Engaging children in self-motivated, focused play (learning!)
  • A child sets a goal for a play outcome then plans and organizes to reach that goal
  • Involves problem solving, creativity, and emotional regulation (which are also valuable in social play where they can practice empathy, communication and collaboration)

Before we get to the examples, here’s one more bonus of playing with a variety of loose parts: multi-sensory experiences in everyday play! Rich sensory play with a wide variety of textures, smells, colors, and sounds (that means more than just plastic toys and just wood toys) help the brain build more complex and stronger networks of neural pathways. And nature has so many sensations to offer, right?

loose parts-nature play

Abundant Loose Parts from Nature

Loose parts from nature help children build a personal connection with nature that instills value and compassion for natural and living things.

If you remember anything from this post, remember this: when you go out with your child to collect these precious treasures from nature (or any other toy for that matter), I want you to think about the immense opportunity for open-ended, multi-sensory play that they offer. Some of us (yes, I am in this group too!), with the best intentions, may go straight for the educational opportunity, as in the science, math, and knowledge to be taught about each object. But at a young age, children benefit most from the experience WITH the object in play, the rest can be worked in gently through books, stories, and conversation after their curiosity has been piqued.

And now, here are our favorite loose parts from nature (but, of course there are so many more!):

Nature’s Loose Parts Materials List

  1. Rocks
  2. Sticks
  3. Leaves
  4. Flowers
  5. Seeds/cones (many plants have dry fruits that look like little capsules, these are great and in such huge variety!)
  6. Shells
  7. Tree cuttings (they can be sawed into shorter pieces or left as is for some large and interesting construction opportunities)

List of Nature's Loose Parts-1

Easy peasy, right? Just remember to collect with sustainability in mind. If there’s only one, don’t pick it, and never take more than what you need. We mostly try to pick leaves, flowers, seeds and cones from the ground. Exceptions may be if there’s a specific learning objective about those items or if they are from your own garden.

Using Nature’s Loose Parts

Everyday Pretend Play

Now that my children are used to playing with loose parts, as opposed to toys with predetermined uses, they’ll pick up loose parts from nature for use in any sort of pretend play they are involved in, from making a soup for the baby to building a garden or home for their fairies. We keep a few sticks, rocks, and seeds available at all times specifically for this purpose.

There are also many amazing play activities that we can set up with these loose parts. These activities are great if you want to introduce or expand a particular area of learning (like letters, shapes, colors, construction, etc.), and they give children who may be new to loose parts an opportunity to expand their creative ways of using them. Once they get started, believe me, they’ll be picking up any stray objects to use creatively in their everyday play!

pretend play with loose parts
Pretend play with loose parts

Activities with Nature’s Loose Parts

Here are few ways to set up open-ended activities that can be set up inside or outside (note: it’s best and more interesting to go outside and collect objects WITH your child).

  • Letters and shapes with rocks or sticks (add sand for extra excitement!)
    • Make or use simple letter or shape “flashcards”. Set out 1-3 flashcards for children 0-3 yrs. For 3-6 yrs, start with 1-3 and then slowly add more.
Letter and shape Activity
Letter and shape activity
  • Nature kitchen
    • Gather leaves, flowers, and seeds in separate containers. Provide bowls or buckets, sticks, and water or sand, if you’re brave, to create a Nature Kitchen. With the first experience, you can make a soup, magic potion, or your child’s favorite dish together, and then set them loose to create their own masterpiece. This is a favorite and repeatable activity!
nature kitchen-loose parts
Nature kitchen
  • Build a TeePee
    • You choose the size! You can use large sticks or small sticks with string or rope. Provide cloth, rocks, leaves, and animal or peg doll toys to decorate and inhabit the structure.
build a teepee-loose parts
Build a teepee
  • Nature fairies
    • Use peg dolls, paper cones, corks, or cardboard paper rolls as a base for the body, and then glue any variety of loose parts from nature, or from home (beads, yarn, etc.), to the doll bodies. Then be sure to PLAY with them afterwards!
Nature Fairies - Loose parts
Nature fairies
  • Leaf art
  • The possibilities are endless here, so I will leave you with several ideas!
    1. Leaf prints with paint
    2. Use a leaf as a painting canvas
    3. Leaf etchings with crayons or colored pencils
    4. Leaf men with leaves glued to paper
    5. Leaf face with other loose parts glued to the leaf to make a face
    6. Leaf necklace
    7. Sewing on the leaf (best with a large blunt darning needle, yarn and big fresh leaves), allow your child to poke holes and pull the yarn through in whatever design they like. This idea is similar to lacing activities, except instead of a lace, they can use a needle and thread.
Leaf art - loose parts
Leaf art

BIG TIP: Keep in mind that, while you may be introducing concepts or learning objectives in some activities, like with letters and shapes, the direction that the child takes the activity may not have much to do with your original intent, and that is OK! Open-ended means that they can choose how to play with the activity and if you observe their choice, you will learn a little something about what their interest is! Plus, simply seeing the letters around them in many ways and repetitively will develop an interest that they will eventually pursue. Enjoy!

Images credit : The Frolicking Tree

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Loose parts article author

Kimberly is a former teacher, forever researcher, and a mother of two, soon to be three, homeschooling kiddos. She started The Frolicking Tree to help parents encourage and inspire a child’s curiosity of the natural world to develop self-motivated, passionate learners by providing activity resources and ideas to create child-led nature explorations.

The What, Why and How Of Toy Rotation

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Read time: 7 minutes
how to reduce toy clutter-toy rotation

Does all the toy clutter make you wonder how to organize toddler toys? Have you considered a toy rotation?

In this post, I will cover what is a toy rotation, how to maintain a successful toy rotation and why you should consider rotating toys.

HOW TO SET UP A TOY ROTATION

WHAT IS A TOY ROTATION?

Toy rotation is the system of rotating toys from an existing toy collection every week or few weeks so as to maintain the novelty of existing toys and encourage more creativity in play.

WHY MAINTAIN A TOY ROTATION?

1. Minimize the clutter of toys

Any toddler parent can attest to the toy jungle that is left behind every day as the toddler waddles through his toys.

The toddler picks up a toy, plays for 5 mins then moves on to the next. Before you know it your living area looks like it was hit by a typhoon!

And toy clutter isn’t just a problem in families with multiple kids and lots of toys.

Little kids have very short attention spans and need to use their hands constantly. This automatically leads to a messy play area full of toys.

Toy rotation can be a start to using a few select toys daily in various ways so as to minimize the clutter.

2. Creativity

When you minimize the number of toys, the child now has to learn how to use whatever he has in the most creative ways.

One big benefit we experienced with toy rotation is newfound creativity. Our son comes up with new ways to play with the same toys each day and gets good use of his toys.

3. Learn the value of things

When implemented at an early age, children learn the value of things.

A toy rotation has given us the opportunity to talk about caring for our things and why we repair and reuse what we can rather than throw away and discard.

You will notice how the child learns to care for his toys and books.

4. Great for small spaces

If you live in a small space you may not have a room in the house that’s dedicated as a playroom. You may have a small nook in the house or the living room itself may double up as a play area for the children.

A toy rotation system can save space and help organize the toys better.

Okay, so how do you go about starting a toy rotation? read on

TOY ROTATION TIPS

1. How to maintain a toy rotation?

This is what we do in our home. Every 1-2 week we rotate toys. We choose 5 toys at a time. I choose the toys such that we can cover educational skills, motor skills, pretend play aspects each week.

For example, each toy rotation will include  1. Musical Toy/Pretend play toy

1-2 Educational toys

1-2 Fine motor skill development toys

Here are some of the educational toys we love for toddlers and preschoolers.

2. What about the non-negotiable toys?

There are some toys that are a “must play with everyday” type of toys. Over a period of time, I realized these are my son’s non-negotiables. This was actually the reason why our first attempt at toy rotation was a fail because there are some toys he just wanted around him all the time.

Once I realized my mistake I made these toys a central feature of the play area. Now he is comfortable rotating the other toys.

Non-negotiable toys in our home are building blocks, our Hape play kitchen and his car collection. We recently setup dedicated toy storage just for these in his play area so that these toys are permanently kept outside for him to access.

Your child too may have some toys he loves and needs to have around every day; it’s okay to exclude these toys from the rotation.

Remember, every child is different, that means that this may/may not be an issue at all for your child, but with a little trial and error and you will figure out what system works for your family.

It is also a great idea to keep a tiny basket with toys or books in different nooks of the house. I usually choose spots where I spend a lot of time in the house with our son.

There is one box of toys and books close to my workstation. This box gets refreshed every 3-6 weeks. Depending on the size of your house you can decide which spots to add extra toy boxes to.

3. Toy storage and organization

I personally feel storage bins are a great option over toy cupboards because you can move the toys around the house.

We have a storage unit from Ikea for the non- negotiable toys I mentioned above and  I place the 5 toys of the week on the top shelf of the unit.

The rest of the toys go into storage boxes that are tucked away in cupboards.

Best toy storage boxes: These are amazing storage boxes for smaller spaces. We have used similar styles in the past to store toys.

3 Sprouts Cube Storage Box

Shumee Canvas Toy Storage Box

E-ware 4 Drawer Rack

Our current toy storage system includes

Ikea FLISAT Toy Storage

Ikea TROFAST Storage 

When the child grows out of the existing toys you can donate, resell or put the toys away in the storage for future children. This way the toys that are in rotation are the ones that are apt for the current developmental age.

4. At what age can a toy rotation be started?

Honestly, it depends on the size of the current toy stash. Our son had a very minimal toy stash until he was about 2 years old. All his toys fit in one box so I didn’t feel the need to start rotating the toys. Also, when he was a baby he didn’t need many toys to stay engaged. He played with spoons and plates from the kitchen on most days.

Once he entered the twos we slowly started adding new toys to meet certain developmental needs and his new interests. And as time went on we accumulated a lot of toys as gifts from family and friends.

Thats when I knew I couldn’t deal with the toy clutter anymore; our son was not even playing with most of the toys in his play area.

A toy rotation system made the toys more visible to him and he now has an organized space to play in.

5. How to handle birthdays with new toys coming in?

When you get too many toys for birthdays, store them away and introduce a new toy on occasions when you want to mix it up within your current toy rotation.

If you feel your child already has too many toys, talk to your guests about a no gift option.

I know sending out a wishlist of toys to the guest list is still a controversial topic. Many people consider it rude or entitled while others think it’s a great idea.

Personally, I’d rather buy from a registry than gift something I am not sure if the person appreciates. There is no need to think of what to buy, no repeat presents, plus you save money knowing well that your gift will get used.

But ultimately the decision to run a gift registry or not depends on the type of family relationships you have.

I would never make such requests if I were not sure how the other person would feel about it. I’d rather say no gifts.

toy rotation

Here are some more toy-related posts for you;

10 Wooden Toy Brands For Kids

How To Select Learning Toys For Kids

Small Homeschool Room Design and Organization Ideas

To sum it up,

A toy rotation is a great way to get more value from existing toys.

Do you run a toy rotation system in your home? Do leave us with your toy rotation tips in the comments below.

33 Non Screen Time Activities For Kids

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Read time: 8 minutes
non screen time activities for kids

With busy lives these days parents rely more and more on screens to help babysit. While the AAP guidelines recommend no screen time until age 2, how many of us actually practice this. Non screen time activities usually require a little conscious effort on part of the parent but are not that effort intensive as parents think them to be.

It’s more about being in a mindset that you will give your child quality time and unstructured play over an iPad or iPhone. I know its easy to just switch on some nursery rhymes and cartoons but screens don’t provide your child with two-way interaction. One of the negative impacts of overexposure to screens is with regards to language development. You need to switch off those devices and talk and interact with your child to aid language development.

While all this talk sounds great on paper, everyday scenarios are difficult on parents especially those with full-time jobs and raising children in a nuclear setup.

I personally found it increasingly hard to keep up with my son once he hit 14-15 months. And though it was freeing to have him sit quietly for short periods of time in front of a screen it was quite evident how nonresponsive this medium of entertainment is.

Here I would love to add a beautiful quote by Janet Lansbury, from www.janetlansbury.com to ponder on:

Truthfully, we waste our energy “occupying” a baby’s time. And keeping a baby busy undermines her natural desire to be an initiator of her own activities and absorb the world on her terms. Babies are self-learners and what they truly need (and pays enormous developmental benefits) is the time, freedom and trust to just “be.”

This is so true, even though this blog topic is about engaging your child with screen free activities, you will see most of the activities are games children enjoy and come up with themselves. They are natural explorers and activities I list here are ones created by my son on his own. I just use his interests and encourage him with similar activities to ones he loves.

Quick Tips On Use Of Screen Time

Though we are not complete no screens home, I follow some rules with my child and he happily enjoys his screen time without getting addicted to it.

  1. Decide on content he will watch, this includes a nursery rhyme series by Little Baby Bum Youtube Channel or National Geographic videos on wildlife.
  2. Don’t hand him the device, he either watches it on our personal computer (we are a no TV house) or I hold the phone in my hands.
  3. Interact with him during screen time, showing him interesting things on the screen or singing along with him.
  4. Keep screen time to a minimum – We go days without any screen time. Using screens more as a source of entertainment when we are really bored and have exhausted all ideas for non screen playtime for the day or when mommy needs to get some important work done and no-one is around to watch the baby or during car rides when he is getting particularly cranky. To summarize its not a daily feature in our home and I limit the amount of time to about 20 minutes a day at 20 months old.

Screen time in itself is not harmful when the content is educational and the child is not exposed to it for hours at length on a daily basis. Here are some tips to help you manage your child’s screentime.

List of non screen time activities for kids

  1. Coloring/Painting – Get a 10% discount on all Dabble Play Art non-toxic, eco friendly art supplies. Use code DM09 at checkout.
  2. Reading – Build your child’s library with all types of books. Bi-lingual books, board books, picture books, flap books, busy books. A good book rotation keeps them enthused about reading. We created a library corner for our son with a book rack and a storage box that acts as a desk. He loves his reading corner and is always excited about pulling out his next read from the rack.
  3. Stickers – We started using stickers recently. They are a big hit. Not only is it a great fine motor activity, but it also teaches them things like names of fruits, animals etc. I made him his own sticker book and he spends a good 20 minutes engaged in this activity.
  4. Balloons
  5. Helping in the kitchen – Get the kids involved in safe activities around the kitchen like mixing things and peeling fruits and vegetables. I usually hand over a bowl and spoon to my son that he uses to mimic me cooking. Another favorite is peeling garlic pods. He enjoys this and I don’t mind the mess. Read more on how to make cooking with toddlers fun and easy.
  6. Helping with laundry – Let them help you sort, stack and fold. It will be clumsy work but keeps them engaged and involved in chores from the beginning.
  7. Pretend play – Buy toy kitchen sets or any other pretend play toys. We play “going to market”. I give my son a bag, he fills it with his favorite fruits and vegetables as if picking it up from the market. Then goes on to cook us a pretend meal. He loves this game and plays it on repeat throughout the day.
  8. Activity bags – When I am busy, I make him an activity bag fill it with different types of toys and bits and bobs from around the house. Get him to sit next to me while he explores the contents of the bag. You can add anything from small toys, combs, hair scrunchies, stickers, pompom balls. But remember to keep an eye on your child even when they are playing by themselves.
  9. Cardboard boxes and sticks
  10. Play outside
  11. Old gadgets – You can give them old phones, tv remotes, calculators or other gadgets around the house to play with.
  12. Baking together – This is a messy activity. But the mess is fun. Messy play helps promote language development, so go ahead let them make some mess.
  13. Water play – Use a tub of water, a few plastic balls, and mugs. You can even give them plastic cups and a mug of water asking them to pour water in each cup. They love these types of water play activities.
  14. Music and dance
  15. Cardboard box doll house
  16. Wash toys together – Again more water fun, but one that gets some work done too.
  17. Singing songs
  18. Go to the market together
  19. Play hide and seek in the house
  20. Matching objects – At about 18 months of age, toddlers love matching and sorting things. Create activities around these. I ask my son to sort based on the color of toys, or one that he came up with – match his safari animal toys to the animal pictures in the book. There are many matching and sorting flashcards available in the market too.
  21. Find a local library
  22. Play ball
  23. Lego sets – Lego especially Lego Duplo sets are engaging games for toddlers. I carry our duplo lego set in a small cloth pouch in my diaper bag even when we travel. It is not a bulky toy to carry and is open-ended so you can make many games out of one set. Eg. We use the figurines from our Lego Duplo set to play with our cardboard dollhouse.
  24. Trampoline – If you have space indoors or a nice garden area, trampolines are a great choice of toy.
  25. Cycle – Find a cycle like this one which can be used from 1 year onwards up to 3 years. It’s a good investment.
  26. Puzzles – Again this age group love puzzles. You find many floor puzzles these days. My son has not yet got the hang of them but a 2-year-old can easily play with puzzles. For 18 month old I will recommend these wooden shape sorter puzzles and marine puzzles These are perfect for their skill level.
  27. Build a pillow fortress
  28. Tool Box – Toddlers love tinkering around and figuring out what fits where. This is a perfect toy to help with their curiosity.
  29. An empty box with toys – My son used an empty plastic box one day and put in as many tiny toys he could fit in it and then proceeded to try out this game for the next half an hour. I was amazed at how curious he was checking to see which toys fit into this box and trying out different combinations of toys each time. This is an example of child-led games. I now give him different sizes of boxes and ask him to put whatever he wants in it. He loves playing this game.
  30. Building blocks
  31. Paper towel rolls
  32. Dough and cookie cutters – Roll out thick circle shaped dough. Then using blunt cookie cutters let them cut out different shapes.
  33. Storytelling
screen free activities for toddlers

Hope this list comes in handy for mamas out there, looking for some screen free activities to engage your child. Do write to me what your favorite non screen time activities for kids are?

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9 Simple Tips To Encourage Language Development

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Read time: 6 minutes
Tips To Encourage Language Development

Language development is an important developmental milestone. Each child has different growth and development rates. But there are a few basic parenting strategies that can be practiced by all parents to encourage early language development.

These strategies helped us with our son. When we started with these we didn’t do it with a goal of enhancing his language; it was just our way of interacting and nurturing a bond with him. But along the way, we observed how this parenting style helped him start talking early and pick up a variety of words. I thought it would be great to share these tips with other parents just starting out or those who still want to try and help enrich their child’s vocabulary. So let’s begin;

Talk, Talk, Talk

Start talking with your little one from day one. At this stage, they crave to hear your voice since they can’t see very well. They respond with coos and gurgles and this marks the beginning of early communication. Examples of talk with babies can be as simple as asking; “how are you today?”, “Are you happy to see Mumma?”, “What is my little one up to?”. Modulate your voice to get them interested in what you are saying and pause for them to respond.
mother-child- language development

Point at things

As a few months pass by and your baby’s eyesight is getting sharper start pointing out things. Describe what you see around you at home or outside. Examples: Look at that red bus. These are beautiful yellow flowers. Look at the butterfly. Keep repeating and pointing at everyday objects from their environment. On repeatedly talking about the crows and making sounds of the crows during your walks, for example, they pick up the word “crow”.

Be specific in your instructions

As they grow in their toddler years, a lot of times it’s difficult for parents to understand what exactly the child wants. They cry and throw tantrums for a lack of knowledge on how to communicate their feelings. It is best to give clear instructions and ask specific questions to communicate well with your toddler.

Examples: “Mommy can’t hear you over the crying, do you want_____?”; “Bring me the red bucket”. This type of communication encourages them to speak and also helps them understand what is expected of them.

Messy play

Baby-led weaning is a great way to getting messy at the table and in turn encourage language development. When the child touches and feels their food through this form of sensory-based self-feeding, they start understanding words associated with certain non-solid objects; for example hot, cold, liquid food, soft food, squishy peas, etc.

I personally felt baby-led weaning and messy eating at the table helped immensely with my son’s grasp of certain words. Another way to incorporate getting messy is through messy play like coloring, painting, playing in a sandbox, etc.

Read, Read Read

I cannot emphasize this point more. Read to your child from the very beginning. Even if it’s just a board book with few images make an imaginary story around those images and read to the baby.

Reading helps them learn words, encourages their creativity and imagination too. Look for books with rhyming words, these get toddlers excited when read aloud. They pick up rhyming words quickly too. I am adding a list below of books I observed that helped my son pick up a lot of words from, hopefully, you will find them useful for your child too.
What the ladybug heard next
Polar bear polar bear what do you hear
The very hungry caterpillar
Vikas tiny board books
Baby faces
First words
Little baby books everyday
Eyes, nose, fingers, and toes
Here come Poppy and Max

Pretend Play

Around the 16-18 month period toddlers start enjoying pretend play. Use pretend play to introduce new words, associations, etiquette, and style of talking. A kitchen set is most apt for this age group, but you can get anything your toddler enjoys and engage in some pretend play.

Open-ended toys

Open ended toys promote language development, for example, jungle animal sets, fruits, and vegetable sets. You can use these for pretend play or allow the toddler to explore and try out different games with these.

A fun game my son came up with is to match his toy safari set to the pages of a book he is reading where the animal is featured. His eyes light up and he squeals in joy when he finds a match. This type of association building between real-world objects and age-appropriate toys and books facilitates early language development.

Here are a few open-ended toys we found to be engaging for little ones.

Getting out of the house

In one of the previous points, I spoke about how you should point at things and describe them in detail to your baby. Spending time outdoors is an important activity that can aid this step. When you are out you can show your child a variety of things.

Take them for a walk in the park, or a local museum, art gallery, beach, restaurants, malls, play areas, or the library. Every experience outside is teaching them new words and encouraging them to use words.

Socialize

Once they are a little older start taking them to family functions, festive celebrations, and parties. These social events create an environment where your child is exposed to different styles of spoken language. And in a country like India, maybe even a different language than one spoken at home.

I know many families don’t take small babies to social events. But, you can always take them to your grandparents’ place and family and friends’ place. They crave interaction and this helps to get them interested in talking from a young age.

I hope these points get you started on interacting more deeply with your baby. Talk to them, read to them and most importantly spend quality time with them.

With busy lives, we are all turning to screens to help us with our kids. But a screen is a consumption device that cant help the child to interact in a two-way manner thus restricting their language development.

Use screen time judiciously and try and introduce them to books and other activities that introduce them to a rich language. I wrote here on how you can engage your child in non-screen time activities.

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The Only Toys You Need For Your Toddler ( 1-2 years)

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Read time: 7 minutes
car-toys-toddlers-child

As a mother I am very particular about the kind of products I expose my son to. Be it baby care products or clothing. So toys are no different. In-fact children below the age of 2 often mouth toys, which directly exposes them to the chemicals in plastic and coloring agents used on toys. That is why toys along with baby care items and clothing are the categories where I don’t compromise on quality and try to invest in safe and sturdy materials.

I try and stick to wood toys made of hard woods. Avoiding cheaper quality wooden toys made with MDF materials.

MDF and Ply-wood are commonly bonded using toxic glues and adhesives.This can sometimes include the toxic chemicals like Formaldehyde. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), classified formaldehyde as a “known human carcinogen”. Furthermore, if the wooden toy is coated with cheap paint and lacquer which possibly contains lead, the wooden toy is just as bad as any plastic toy.

If a wooden toy is not available I choose cloth toys and  trusted brand name plastic toys. Also note, when a plastic toy starts to wear off, it is time to discard the same, and don’t use second hand and old plastic toys as there may be possibility of chemicals leaching out and the toy not meeting the current toy safety standards.

Don’t just think about material when you think of safe toys; the shape and size of the toys are also important. Check that there are no sharp edges to the toy and that it passes the sizing standards for that age group. Especially with children below age of 2, there is always a risk of choking on toys. It’s best to stay away from toys that contain tiny parts.

When you start investing in good quality toys it becomes about quality over quantity. So your child will have a smaller collection but one that can last him/her through childhood.

Again, these are just basic guidelines for you as a parent when you choose a toy; I don’t mean to preach by any means. I too have a collection of toys for my son that are a mix of largely wooden, few plastic and cloth toys. In the end it’s about having an understanding about the chemicals in our children’s toys and being thoughtful about our choices.

Now getting to the list of toys that I found most age appropriate between 1-2 years of age. Some of the toys from my previous list of toys for baby’s first year are still relevant to this age group e.g, stacking rings, blocks, pull along toys, books etc. So we carry those forward into the toddler years.

The Only Toys You Need For Your Toddler

Only toys you need for your toddler 1-2 years

  • Mega Blocks: Once the child gets the hang of stacking, he/she will move onto building. Mega Blocks are easy to use for those tiny toddler palms that are not yet very adept with fine motor skills.

Recommendations:

Fisher Price Big Building Bag

  • Balls: This is the perfect age group for them to start understanding the concept of throwing balls. They have just started running and jumping and a ball is the perfect play companion to them. This one is a must buy.

Recommendation:

Kipsta Green Blue Ball

  • Books: Once they enter toddler years kids get really excited about books, especially if you already have a routine that incorporates reading. Try and find a variety of themes and storybooks. Some board books, a few pop up books, interactive books, paperbacks etc. Let them get exposed to a variety of formats. Some of our favorites are:
  1. Peter Rabbit Finger Puppet Book – Beatrix Potter
  2. Polar Bear Polar Bear What Do You Hear – Eric Carle
  3. Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You Hear – Eric Carle
  4. What The Ladybird Heard – Julia Donaldson
  5. What The Ladybird Heard Next – Julia Donaldson
  6. When I Grow Up – Noella Menon
  7. Busy Airport (Busy Book) – Rebecca Finn, Campbell Books
  8. Cheep Cheep – Tulika Publishers
  • Kitchen set: Pretend play becomes a huge developmental activity in this period. Toddlers pick up on the nuances of what cooking looks like, trying their hands at stirring pots, serving on plates etc. I looked everywhere for a steel set or a wooden one and finally found one by Hape Toys. I will highly recommend this set. My son loves it a lot, it is one toy he is found playing with everyday. If you follow me on Instagram, you have probably seen this set in the many pictures I have put up there.

Recommendations:

Hape Gourmet Wooden Starters Kitchen Set

Hape Wooden Tea Set For Two

  • Vehicles: Kids at this age love the pretend play concept of cars, trains, airplanes, construction vehicles. They are now aware of their surroundings and observing the vehicles on the road, this helps them connect the real world physical objects they see through playtime.

Recommendations:

Maya Organic Wooden Pull Along Engine

Shumee Tow Truck

Shumee Blue Race Car

  • Musical toys: At this age children start enjoying music and want to participate in it by dancing, playing musical instruments. Introducing an xylophone is great for this age. They enjoy the process of creating music. I like the ones that come with a single stick unit rather than ones that have a tiny ball attached at the end. Because if the ball falls off, it can pose a choking risk. You can even buy other musical instruments more suited to their age like a baby casio, drums etc.

Recommendations:

Hape Wooden Xylophone

Plan Toy’s Wooden Xylophone

  • Coloring books and pencils: Coloring is a great activity to enhance your child’s fine motor skills. Also helps hone their creativity. They learn about colors and textures through coloring activities. There is no real need to buy special coloring books, you can just give them blank papers or old diary’s, notebooks lying around the house. Look for age appropriate crayons especially if your toddler still mouths his crayons. Crayons made of natural materials like soy or beeswax are most suited to this age group. I like the ones by Azafran Crayons as they are made of organic waxes of palm, soya, soya butter and food grade colors.

Recommendation:

Azafran Crayons

  • Animal Set/Fruit Set/Vegetable Set: Through books, observation and conversation toddlers start picking up names of animals, fruits, and vegetables. Buying them play sets of the same becomes a new pretend play activity for them. They soon have their own favorites among these. I found that my son picked up names of a lot of animals, fruits and vegetables when he saw them in such a toy format.

Recommendations:

K’s Kids Take Along Playset – Jungle

Shumee Safari Truck

Hape Wooden Fruit

I hope you found this list useful. Its always great to have an age wise compilation like this at hand when you want to gift a toy or have forgotten what you used for your previous baby. Which toys does your child love? Leave me a comment below. If you liked what you read follow me on Facebook and Pinterest for more ideas.

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