Which toy is appropriate for my two-year-old child? What is the right toy for 1, 2 and 3 year olds? This is what mothers or fathers ask the saleswoman in the toy store, and usually they end up buying something that seems particularly cute or precious to them, something that has been touted in advertising, but rarely does the buyer or saleswoman choose the toy based on whether it best suits the child’s developmental stage.
Finding the right toy
What toy is appropriate for my two-year-old child? What is the right toy for 1, 2 and 3 year olds? While it’s taken for granted when buying a children’s book that the salesperson will ask, “What has the child already read?” or “What does he or she like to read?”, it’s rare to hear the toy store ask, “What can the child already do?” or “What toy does he or she already know?” And yet, buying a toy is just as responsible as choosing the right book for a schoolchild, because the toy imparts just as important knowledge and insights to the toddler as the book does to the schoolchild later on. At the same time, there are still adults who disdainfully regard playing and toys as something quite unimportant, and disregard: “After all, it’s only play.” But play is the only and wonderfully functional way for a young child to get to know its environment, to come to terms with it, to learn to distinguish colors, shapes, things, sounds, details and smells, and to learn activities and skills by handling a wide variety of materials. In short, play is the inevitable, necessary precursor to the school child’s learning and to the adult’s work and skills. Wonderful, varied and rapid is the development of the child in the first years of life. The various stages of this development are determined mainly by the unfolding of the activity of the child’s brain, which is subject to a strict regularity. However, the pace, direction and manner of development depend on the influences of the child’s environment, i.e. primarily on the educational influences of adults. Whether a person has firm habits later in life, is orderly, systematic, has a good sense of time and orientation, often depends on whether his mother or father has taught him firm habits already in infancy, has observed with loving consistency the meal times exactly, as well as the putting to bed etc.. But not only the basic habits are formed so early for better or worse under the influence of adults, it is similar with the basic feelings.
Play and toys shape the child
Whether a person in later life is open-minded, tender, loving, trusting, friendly, with good interpersonal relations integrates into the human community, depends largely on the way his behavior was brought up in the family, especially by the most trusted adults. Neglected children, who have been denied tenderness and love, often grow up to be people who do not find human attachment to others, who are callous and weak in contact. On the other hand, many a mother or father does not know what damage she is doing with her excessive coddling and idolization of her baby. A few years later, she wonders about the capriciousness of her favorite, about his egoism, his eternal self-centeredness, his inability to fit into the community, where he is no longer the center around which everything revolves. At the same time, by her jealous love, by her indulgence and weakness, she herself has made it difficult or even impossible for her young child to develop good interpersonal relationships, proper social behavior with other children and with adults outside the family circle.
Play and toys – important for development
Fundamental processes in the child’s behavior take place precisely in the first years of life, and it is important to educate properly precisely in this period. But to educate properly means – to know how the child’s development should proceed and by what means it should be evoked or directed and led in the right ways. In this period, play is the main factor for mental development as well as for the development of physical dexterity and skills.The foundations of the child’s play are its orientation and imitation activities. Already in the 2nd month of life, babies fixate on a colorful, shiny or noisy object moving close to their eyes and try to follow it with their eyes. The head of the 3 to 4 month old child already turns at lightning speed to every sound, every movement, every new object. Once the child has learned to grasp, its orientation activity, curiosity and thirst for knowledge know no bounds. Everything that can be reached is grasped, touched, examined, taken from one hand to the other, put into the mouth, and so on. The child manipulates and handles things, learning their properties. At the same time, the movements of his hand and fingers become more refined. It acquires dexterity. Thus, the one basis of play is the orientation instinct. It provides the child with sensations and perceptions. The child learns about shapes, colors, bodies, spatial relationships and distances, qualities of materials, etc. His seeing, hearing, touching qualify. This original investigation of all objects, which would be exhausted in knocking, throwing, pushing, scratching, tearing etc., is now helped by another instinct of the child, the ability to imitate. Already in the 6th and 7th month of life, the child is able to imitate the facial expressions of the adult, followed by movements of the head, e.g. nodding, shaking the head, then those of the arms and hands (wave-wave, please-please, etc.), and finally the child can imitate with its whole body or individual limbs complicated movements, activities, even entire actions, which it has observed in its environment. This is where conscious goal-directed education must come in again. If the child is not taught what is desirable, he will learn what is undesirable, because his urge to activity, his ability to imitate are boundless. Throughout infancy, the child learns primarily through imitation, which is gradually supported and accompanied by linguistic guidance and is largely replaced by it only in school.
Which toy is the right one?
In the first years of life, play is the main factor for mental development as well as for the development of physical dexterity and skills. Learning in play, therefore, means investigating and imitating. However, in order for the child to learn, i.e. to recognize its environment, to orient itself in it, to find its way around, to get to know it, it must be able to play and have objects to play with. However, if the play activity is to go beyond mere infantile investigation, if it is to be prevented that the beautiful toy is immediately broken or that it is carelessly pushed aside after a short time, then two conditions must be fulfilled:
1. the toy must correspond to the developmental stage of the child’s perceptive ability and dexterity. In other words, it must be neither too simple for the child nor too complicated. 2. the adult must show the child what can be done with the toy, because only if the child can first observe what activities can be done with the object, will he imitate these activities and creatively incorporate them into his play, thereby developing his physical and mental abilities and skills. For orientation about the gradual development of play activity in the first three years of life and about the most suitable toys, the following listing in the 3rd part about the right toys up to 3 years serves.
Physical and mental abilities and skills from 1 to 3 years of age.
For orientation about the gradual development of play activity in the first three years of life and about the most suitable toys, the following listing serves. 4th to 6th month:
- First spatial perception: distance of objects when grasping.
- Direction of sound, looks for sound location on correct side
- Imitating facial expressions, imitating head movements (nodding, shaking head).
7th to 9th month:
- Handles an object for a long time, objects are put in the mouth, put away, pushed, thrown down.
- Knocking on objects, handling two objects.
- Imitating hand movements: banging on table, banging two spoons together, shaking the bell, etc.
10th to 12th month:
- Pick up one object from another
- Pulls objects on string, grabs two objects with one hand, opens lid of boxes and takes out object
- Imitating drumming, with one, later with uwei mallets, rolling ball to an adult
13-15 months:
- Walk freely, get up from sitting without stopping.
- Drink from cup held out
- Remove and put away wooden cube
- Imitative building with building blocks, two stones on top of each other
16-18 Month:
- Can climb stairs with trailing the second leg and holding on with both hands.
- Holds on to the furniture and stands on tiptoes
- Points to objects it wants, can put rings or perforated discs on rod and take them off
- Imitates activities, sweep, wash, read, walk on the stick.
19-21 months:
- Climbing on the chair and other objects, climbing steps, one hand on the railing.
- Can put on a cap, put on a shirt
- Get ball out from under the cupboard with stick, knock on knocking board with hammer, string beads on thread
- Begins to play with dolls: feed, put in bed, etc.
22-24 months:
- Drink independently from cup or mug
- Recognize and name pictures of everyday objects, toys, animals, mainly in children’s language
- Turn music box, fit squares in mosaic game, wraps string around cardboard or wood
25-27 Month:
- Can wash and dry themselves
- Can distinguish longer and shorter rods
- Rebuilds bridge or gate from blocks
28-30 Month:
- Can unbutton and button, stand on one leg for a while.
- Sorts by size without error
- Counts down to 4
31st to 36th month:
- Puts on and takes off shoes and stokes them to
- Sorts after five to six colors without error
- Distinguishes weight
- Plays mother-father-child, doctor, etc.
- Recognizes melodies and sings after or calls song
Suitable toy for children from 1 to 3 years.
Fundamental processes in the behavior of the child take place precisely in the first years of life, and it is important to educate properly, especially during this period. Toys until the first year of life:
- Rattles, rattles, rubber dolls and animals (pay attention to age-appropriate size and material) preferably with eyelet to hang on the bed.
- Rattle cubes, teaspoon, bell, drum.
- Rocking chair (from 7 to 8 months, rocking gives great pleasure and develops the movements of the whole body).
- Bucket or cup to fill with blocks
Toys for 1 to 2 year olds:
- Balls (medium size)
- Foot benches, boxes
- Larger stuffed and plush animals (without glass eyes).
- Pulling cart, wheelbarrow
- Bucket, shovel, sand molds
- Dolls made of wood, with and without limbs, jumping jack.
- Movable wooden bats and other movable and noisy pulling animals.
- Musical and humming top, whistle, trumpet, music box, broom, mop, stick cloth, shovel, hand brush, scrubber, picture book 1st and 2nd stage.
- Dice tower, tambourine, xylophone, triangle, knocking board.
- Crayons and paper or chalk and blackboard
Toys for 2 to 3 year olds:
- Large balls
- Bending dolls, jointed dolls for dressing and undressing, doll clothes, doll house.
- Scooter, tricycle, swing, doll carriage, doll’s meadow or bed with blankets, pillows and mattresses to build a cave.
- Doll kitchen, shop
- Farm with animals made of wood
- Wooden train and wooden cars
- Legespiele and plug-in games
- Wooden beads to wind
- Picture books of the 3rd level
