Category: Parent Resources

Your child will begin to use objects as tools – using a spoon to chase food around on the plate. He may enjoy interactive games such as tickling and letting him tickle you and “talking” on the phone. Problem-solving skills are beginning to develop and your child begins to understand words and recognize the names of familiar objects. He will likely want to put most objects into his mouth.

• Push toys and walkers
• Shape sorters or plastic containers with balls and objects (develops eye-hand coordination, visual-spatial relationships)
• Balls
• Toy telephones
• Books – pop-ups, textures, pull tabs
• Blocks – a must have for stacking and knocking over
• Pail and shovel

At this stage your child wants to be more independent, but still appreciates the help from you. Your child learns by getting her hands into everything. She will fiddle with knobs, open and shut doors, and flip light switches on and off. Toys with interlocking parts – pop-up toys, nesting toys, sorting toys, trucks with doors that open and shut – create endless opportunities to explore.

• Toys to play house
• Large and small blocks
• Toy instruments
• Puzzles
• Illustrated Books and CD’s – nursery rhymes; ask your child if he can name things seen in the pictures
• Train sets

At age two, your child may become more assertive, but her defiance really results from her desire for independence and her continuing need for help. Your child may be testing her limits.

• Ride-on toys (especially ones that “hold cargo”)
• Balls – soft ones for throwing; set up hoops using wastepaper baskets; a few will on occasion catch a ball; draw two lines and play a simplified game of soccer
• Art supplies that allow for creativity. Introduce tempera paints with various size paint brushes
• Percussive instruments – tambourines, rhythm sticks, drums; march to the beat of different music genres
• Dress-up clothes
• Child-size household equipment – vacuum cleaners, workbench, small table and chairs
• Construction toys
• Puzzles and manipulatives

Your child will want to learn to put on his own T-shirt, take off his own pants, and wash and dry his own hands. He may want to include other children in his games, and he’ll really begin to relate to and focus on other kids, which allows him to play more structured games.

• Jigsaw Puzzles – look for ones with large, simple, and easy recognizable pictures; works on problem solving and eye/hand coordination
• Beginning board or memory games – Chutes and Ladders, I Spy, Memory
• Kitchen set
• Mega Blocks or Lego Duplos
• Art Supplies – crayons, clay, collage materials, watercolors, finger paints
• Outdoor equipment – swings, basketball hoops, bats, golf-sets, soccer balls
• Books that are age-appropriate and more sophisticated; your child can follow narratives and more complicated words and stories