6 Best Toddler Developmental Toys

Nowadays, our life is surrounded by screens. From computers to phones to televisions, most of our days pass staring at the screens. And our kids pick up this fascination with bright displays too quickly.

Smart devices have their advantages, of course. There are devices that can help in a child’s development. But spending too much time with gadgets is not good for the children’s overall growth.

For a balanced development of a child’s cognitive and physical abilities, a child must spend time with toys, books, and outdoor games too.

Talking about toys, they can be a great learning aid for children. They can help in all the main areas of kids development. That is, Cognitive Development, Social & Emotional Development, Speech & Language Development, Fine Motor Skills Development, and Gross Motor Skills Development.

There are many toys available in the market. And it can get confusing to choose from among them. Well, here are some of the toys which I find very useful for my 3-year old.

Skoolzy Peg Board Set

Skoolzy has around 30 big pegs and also includes a bag for easy storage. This toy helps in developing Fine Motor Skills by helping in hand-eye coordination, motor skills, and strengthening perception skills. My 3-year old was able to identify peg colors and sort them, stack them, count them and also identify the patterns.

Alex Discover Button Art Activity Set

This is such a fun activity set that even I enjoy playing with it. There are 40 buttons and 10 different pictures in the set. Based on the picture, children have to attach the matching buttons over it. Basically, this also helps them in distinguishing the colors and counting. This helps in hand and eye coordination and fine motor skills. it also encourages creativity as the children can use the buttons based on their preferences. This set comes in a storage tray that holds all the pieces and pictures.

Melissa & Doug Vehicles Jigsaw Puzzles in a Box

My son loves to play with cars & trucks. So I got this jigsaw puzzle of vehicles. There are 4 puzzles in the box: car, train, fire truck & school bus. Each has 12-pieces. Earlier, my son was having difficulty in understanding the pieces. But now he can easily differentiate and put pieces in the right order. For example, if a piece has a wheel that means it will go on the bottom. Now, he easily completes the puzzle in less than 2 minutes. This kind of puzzle helps in kids Cognitive Development. There are many options for jigsaw puzzles available. You can choose based on your kid's preference.

HABA Town Maze Magnetic Game Developmental STEM Activity

This is another great toy for kids Cognitive Development. The main task is to match the balls with the houses based on the color. For example- Red balls will go in Red color garage, etc. This also helps in color recognition, and with fine motor skills by using the magnetic wand to take balls to their respective garages. But that's not all. With the help of the magnetic wand, they need to think when they need to rotate the sphere to allow the ball to pass or how to use the roundabout. This toy also teaches them patience and problem- solving.

Peaceable Kingdom Friends and Neighbors: The Helping Game Emotional Development Cooperative Game for Kids

This is the only game I was able to find on Social & Emotional development. Usually, children learn social & emotional skills from the surroundings but I thought this will help my son gather more understanding. Though it's a great game, I thought they should include more boards, currently they have only 4. It is basically a situation-oriented game where kids have to do object identification and matching. They will get a situation and they must decide what they should do in it. For example, use a paper towel to clean a spill. This game makes them understand the concept of empathy. Also helps in Speech & Language Development. So if a kid is a speech delayed, this is a really nice game to help them understand different concepts. It also helps in communicating more.

Mudpuppy Baby's First Words Flash Cards, Ages 3-5

I have used so many flashcards for Speech & Learning. There are many available for the ages 1-3. But only a few for the age group above 3. These are high- quality cards, so won't bend easily. They come with a removable ring for easy storage. You just lay all the cards on the table and ask them to find a particular card. There are many options available: numbers, alphabets, words, etc. What’s best about these cards is that a kid knows about all the words, you can even ask them to identify cards based on categories. Like: cloud & rainbow, duck & frog, one category about fruits, etc. We are having so much fun learning these.

 

There are so many options of educational toys available. It's difficult to list all of them. I’ve listed the ones I find most effective for my 3-years old. And for Gross Motor skills, I find outdoor activities helps a lot. My son likes construction vehicles a lot, I try to purchase toys based in that category so that he'll develop interest and get involved. 

Tip: Set a schedule for each development skill and distribute time evenly. Ten minutes are sufficient for each activity or play. That way, children will stay interested in learning and won't get distracted or bored. 

Hope this helps. Please update me if you know any other great educational toy!