I don’t understand the Fidget Spinner craze whatsoever – that being said, it’s pretty cool that in our iPhone/social media-saturated age, kids can still go totally ballistic over cheap plastic toys.
With three kids, toys are not hard to come by in our apartment. However, there are only a handful of toys that entertain a special needs 11-year-old, an almost-3-year-old and a 16-month-old in equal measure. When we see the kids playing with one of the toys on this list, my husband and I will often say to each other. “We really got our money’s worth out of that one,” to which the other usually responds, “and then some.”
Toddlers are little explorers who learn by doing. Play gives your child a great opportunity to develop and practice new skills at her own pace by following her unique interests. The toys and playthings your child has available to her can shape her development in important ways, for example check this musical toys for 2 yr olds.
While it may seem like choosing toys for toddlers should be easy, as you walk into a toy store today, the only thing that’s easy is feeling overwhelmed. There is a huge array of toys that have been developed for the toddler market. How do you choose which are right for your child? How can you tell which are high quality and which will last? Which will engage your child’s interest for more than a few days or weeks? Below are some ideas for choosing toys that will grow with your child, challenge her, and nurture her overall development (her thinking, physical, language and social-emotional skills).
Our pal Myrone, with whom we’ve pushed the boundaries of guitar playthrough videos in moving cars and amongst low-res skeleton screensavers, is taking the Fidget Spinner to the next level. It’s actually surprising to me that it took this long for someone to figure out such a use for the toy, but it’s a development I’m excited about:
