Kaboutjie SA Mommy Blogs by Lynne Huysamen
Research reveals that learning through play is a vital part of a child’s developmental stages. Even from an early developmental stage, kid’s minds are expanding and just by taking in their environment and surrounding they can learn a lot about themselves and their own identity.
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Using educational toys is an effective tool for learning the different life skills such as:
- Learning cause and effect and problem solving
- Developing gross and fine motor skills
- Boosting their creativity
- Nurturing imagination
- Having a positive self-esteem and discovering their independence
Children can start reaping the rewards from using educational toys from as young as one month old.
Children’s Toys for Two Years and Older
As your child is getting older, they become more active and loves to explore their environment and unfamiliar objects. You can start by introducing toys which promotes physical play such as basketball hoops or tricycles. Make sure you teach them about safety considerations like wearing a helmet.
This is a great age for incorporating toys that enhances cognitive skill building as well. Kinetic sand, for example, is an excellent sensory activity that assist kids with practicing writing when they form shapes or letters in the sand. An easel can be advantageous for developing small motor control by letting them hold a paint brush or chalk for instance. It can help also help them being creative by making their own beautiful art pieces.
Emergent literacy and name recognition skills can be developed by introducing toddlers to “See and say” books and games. For example, through repetitive sounds and pictures a child can learn specific sounds that are made by different animals. Colour picture books with words can help a child familiarise the words they hear with how they look on the page.
Problem solving skills are developed through toys such as complex building sets with coloured blocks that teaches them how to differentiate between the colours and sorting each colour.
Interactive toys that encourages your child to play with others is an excellent tool for building social skills.
5 Educational Toys for 3 Year Olds
- Vatos educational take-apart car construction toy for boys and girls
This construction toy is suitable for children from ages 3-6 years old.
It is a unique take-apart toy for girls and boys and ideal for children who want to become an engineer one day.
This toy will keep them busy for a few hours to assemble or take-apart their own truck while increasing their confidence and establish a sense of accomplishment.
It is a creative and toy that allows them to play while learning and improving capabilities such as minds-on, hand-eye coordination, distinguishing shapes and stimulating their imagination.
The build-your-own car kit is accompanied with a manual drill and power drill which requires two AA batteries (not included).
The drill makes a realistic sound that mimics a drill when it is used for twisting the screws of the car.
The bulldozer requires three AA batteries (not included).
It is an excellent toy for parent-child interaction where parents can assist their child with assembly or disassembly of the toy.
It is a brilliant for STEM developmental and an educational toy to keep them entertained for hours on end.
- Amosting early learning Colour-matching pegboard for boys and girls
Recommended for toddlers aged two years and older.
An excellent choice for creative playtime – starts by coordinating and snapping mushrooms snails to the illustrated patterned cards to complete the picture, followed by creating one of a kind designs by placing pegs on the board. A great opportunity for allowing your kids’ imaginations run free.
This educational play set is perfect for developing:
- Fine motor skills
- Hand dexterity
- Colour recognition
- Artistic sense
- Early patterning & imagination
- Sequencing ability
Made from high-quality and safe materials and comes with a storage tray for storing all the cards and buttons when playtime is over.
The set includes: 46 Colourful buttons, 10 Different pictures, storage tray and peg board.
- Free to Fly Large AquaDoodle drawing mat for kids
This drawing mat is suitable for boys and girls from 3 years and older. It is a large water drawing mat with large size Dinosaur world pattern.
This drawing mat is an easy to use, portable and reusable set which can is perfect either indoors or outdoors use.
An excellent interactive toy set which includes:
- 1 x Doodle mat
- 2 x Set of four magic pens
- 8 x Drawing moulds
- 4 x Drawing templates
- 1 x Drawing booklet
The magic pens are filled with clean water and the doodle takes 3-10 minutes to disappear automatically (depending on the air flow and temperature). Kids can draw on the doodle mat continuously.
This set is perfect for the development of:
- Hand-eye coordination
- Colour perception
- Creative and painting skills.
It is an excellent gift for Christmas or birthdays, a unique educational toy with no ink, no paint, non-polluting and non-toxic. This is a safe and mess-free toy with a water-resistant nylon material mat and magic pens that leaves no unwanted ink or paint stains.
- Queena wooden bear family jigsaw puzzle
This wooden bear puzzle is recommended for boys and girls, ages are three years and older. (Children under 7 years old must be supervised by adults).
It contains 72 jigsaw puzzle pieces and one wooden storage box with three compartments for Mommy bear, Daddy bear and baby bear.
Toddlers can learn colours, shapes and clothing matching.
This educational toy is a unique aid for developing:
- Your child’s potential
- Creativity
- Hand-eye coordination
- Patience
- Colour and shape perception
Made from top-quality and safe materials which is lightweight and eco-friendly. This item received a 5-star customer satisfaction rating on Amazon and comes highly recommended.
- VtechAlphabet apple toy
This is a wonderful toy for boys and girls from ages 2-5 years old. It is an interactive learning toddler toy with light-up talking, 26 light-up letter buttons, worm slider, movable clock hand and carry handle for portability.
The Alphabet toy worm is a helpful guide during learning and playing games. The movable hand is an excellent aid for introducing the concept of time.
Featuring 8 learning abilities including several progressive learning levels such as words, time concept, music, phonics and more.
This early-learning toy is equipped with 29 songs and melodies with blinking lights which is promoting visual and verbal discovery.
The toy uses two AA batteries which are included for demo purposes. For long-term use, new batteries need to be installed.
These look like great educational toys! I really like the peg boards and the drawing mat. Hours of fun for little ones. The wooden bear puzzles are great too. We had something similar for our kids when they were younger. These are great tips for parents of little ones. Thanks!
Yes the wooden puzzles are fantastic! So much better than board puzzles which get chewed on and disintegrate LOL.
This post made me do time travel. My son loved his construction toys and he has had different types of them. Jigsaw puzzles – we played as a family. I love the Queena wooden bear family jigsaw puzzle which you have shared. These educational toys are not only fun but help to develop fundamental abilities such as cognitive thinking and problem solving as well.
Puzzles are fantastic and have always been a favourite of my kids, as babies and now. In fact I love puzzles too and when I get out a new 3000 piece puzzle I see my kids eyes light up with excitement.
It is so important that kids are exposed to the right toys appropriate to their age when growing up. Toys are not only the means to keep them engaged and entertained but also great educational vehicles that can develop a whole range of skills and abilities. Reading about the Vatos educational take-apart car construction toy, I remembered my own building blocks that lay scattered across the house, much to the chagrin of my mom!
Haha oh yes all the little bits and pieces from toys, puzzles and Lego! I totally agree that toys that help your child learn through play are always best.
Toys are such a big part of a child’s childhood and growing years. All these are great picks! It is wonderful to see a child developing skills through play. My son loved his building blocks but also enjoyed a lot of jigsaw puzzles, reading, drawing, painting and music. He constantly wrote stories and even recorded some recitations spontaneously. What fun days those were! Still have a few of his toys – the nostalgia ones. We loved how he got engrossed with some of the building blocks for hours together.