Push and pull toys

Why your child will enjoy this toy now:

Once toddlers develop good balance, a push or pull toy invites them to attempt new physical challenges. Practicing walking skills helps build confidence, and newly mobile children love to bring something of theirs along—wherever they go!

What you can do to help your child learn more:

• Clear a path so your child is able to move freely. Bolster her confidence with plenty of positive reinforcement for efforts to exercise her new balancing and walking skills. And remember, for safety reasons, never extend the length of a toy's pull string or tie it around your child's wrist.
• If yours is a musical toy, build your child's receptive language skills and appreciation of music by singing along with it, or making up your own words to the tunes.
• Pretend to have a parade and your child will follow in your footsteps, with the pull-toy bringing up the rear! Show your child how you march, and encourage her to bring her knees up high, too (as best she can, of course, without toppling over!). Call out the rhythm of your steps — "March, march. March, march." Everyone loves a parade!
• To extend the musical play, add musical instruments to your parade—make cymbals of pots and pans, for example. Linking music with movement helps children internalize what they're experiencing and learning.

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Slow, battery-powered ride-ons

Why your child will enjoy this toy now:

A sturdy ride-on offers fun and challenges while fostering balance, coordination and other physical skills. It can also spark imaginative play, as your child pretends to be a grown-up on a realistic vehicle. Add the excitement of battery power, and add to the thrill!

What you can do to help your child learn more:

• Until she develops confidence in her balance and coordination, your child may need help getting on and off. Speak very encouragingly about how soon she'll be a big girl, able to do it all by herself. She's likely to spend a lot of time mastering the skill of getting on and off, so be sure to clear a path all around the vehicle.
• When your child is ready to ride, reinforce her understanding of cause-and-effect by saying the words "go" and "stop" as the vehicle reacts when she pushes the "go" button and takes her finger off again, or as you push and stop the vehicle.
• Use words to describe her "on and off" and "stop and go" actions, and you'll be building her understanding of the concept that words are associated with things and actions.

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Toys to encourage early learning

Why your child will enjoy this toy now:

When learning is presented in a way that's fun and engaging, children become more interested and more involved. Early learning toys help thinking skills develop and enhance vocabulary.

What you can do to help your child learn more:

• Toys like these expose your child to the basic building blocks of learning … simple concepts like letters, numbers, shapes and colors. Use these concepts as points of discussion and play with your child, extending them to other parts of your child's world to help them make more sense. "That's the number five. Jane is 5 years old."
• If the toy moves, pass it back and forth to each other to introduce the concept of interaction and cooperation. "I'll push it to you, then you push it back to me."
• Add interest by playing letter or number games. Pick a letter and find something in the room that begins with that letter. Say the name of the letter and the name of the item out loud for your child: "That's a d. D is for Daddy." You're extending his learning, but you don't need to be concerned about teaching the actual letters or numbers at this age.

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Playsets

Why your child will enjoy this toy now:

A themed playset brings the great big world down to size for your toddler, giving her the opportunity to make the decisions, control the action, use her developing imagination and gain self-confidence along the way.

What you can do to help your child learn more:

• Many playsets have a theme. If yours is a farm, for example, read picture books to your child about farm life, farm animals and the types of crops that are grown there. Talk about what the farmer does on the farm, and the important role farms play in providing us with food. At this age, she won't grasp everything you're telling her, but you will plant the seeds for understanding later on.
• If you have a vegetable or flower garden, call on your "little farmer" to help with planting, weeding, or harvesting. Even if she's just sitting next to you flicking dirt with a trowel, she'll feel very important doing so and this direct experience will help solidify ideas of what farmers do.
• Use variations of these ideas depending on your playset's theme; maybe it's a garage, maybe it's a dollhouse. There are so many picture books about identifying types of vehicles, for example. Borrow some from the library and talk with your child about the different tasks we use them for.
• Reinforce your child's recognition skills by helping her practice the sounds she hears—if you start, it's likely that your child will soon join in. Then challenge her memory and thinking skills by showing her an animal or a car, for example, and asking her to make that sound.
• It helps your child make connections when you can relate a learning concept to things within her own range of experience. Make an effort to show your child the real thing: many petting zoos have farm animals for children to visit, and some farms offer tours to children's groups—contact a preschool in your area for a recommendation. The next time you're in the car together, point out the different vehicles you see. Whenever possible, reinforce concepts with something your child can see.
• Prompt problem-solving and thinking skills by giving your child little chores to do—"Let's put all the animals in their stalls for the night. Are they all in the right places?" Or, "We need to get the car washed. Can you do that?"

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Dollhouse-themed playsets

Why your child will enjoy this toy now:

Playsets such as these encourage children to take what they experience in real life and bring it to their play. And at a time when many children are moving beyond the pointing stage and trying to get the words out for things they want to communicate, playsets are also good prompters for building language skills.

What you can do to help your child learn more:

• Sit back and watch your child play with this toy. You'll see re-enactments of things you do (it's one of the joys and, quite possibly, revelations about this type of toy). Don't be surprised if you hear the mommy saying things you say—"Time for you to go to bed now!" Watch how your child interprets the world.
• Feel free to join in and add to the pretend play. "It seems like the baby's tired. Do you think we should put the baby to bed?" Or try interjecting something into a scene your child has already set up: "Do I hear a baby crying?" It doesn't really matter whether your child accepts your idea or not; your intent here is to plant ideas for furthering the play.
• Point out different parts of the house, and using descriptive words: "Let's go up the stairs to the bathroom." "Let's go down." "Let's go in or out or through the door." If you can get these spatial relation words into an everyday context for your child now—by hearing them, seeing what they mean and taking action—it won't be long before they make sense to her.
• Talk about how the dollhouse is like your house, or how it's different. Comparisons exercise your child's thinking skills, so as you go through your daily routines, point out the various things in your house that relate to features of her dollhouse: "We use our real oven to make dinner. Can you show me the oven in your house?"

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