Choosing the best toys for your toddler (age 1–3)
Between the ages of one and three, a child’s brain develops more rapidly than at any other stage of life. The Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University reports that, during this window, the brain generates about one million new neural connections per second.
What your young child plays with during this critical developmental period is important, because they help them learn how to pay attention, solve problems and communicate. However, the toy industry often doesn’t make it easy for you. When shopping for your toddler, you’ll find shelves filled with toys that are colourful, interesting and promising to aid in your child’s developmental progress, but many times with little scientific backing for their claims. Therefore, it’s helpful to understand what the experts say is best for your child and which characteristics really matter when choosing the right toys for children ages one to three.
Open-ended vs. closed-ended: what really matters
The researchers conducting a study published in Infant Behavior & Development (2018) made an important discovery regarding the number of toys that are available for toddlers to use. Their research indicated that toddlers played with a limited amount of toys in a much deeper way, were able to sustain their attention longer, and were more creative in their explorations than toddlers whose toys offered many different options. The researchers concluded that the quality of a toy, and the ability to stimulate creativity, problem solving skills and communication, have nothing to do with either the quantity of toys or their visual appeal.
Open-ended toys are designed to be used in many ways, without having one “right” answer. Examples include wooden blocks, stacking rings, nesting cups and simple figurines. These types of toys allow children to explore using various methods. For example, a child might create a tower using blocks, place them side-by-side, or use them to create a story. All of these examples require thinking outside the box and creativity, both of which are qualities closed-end toys lack.
Closed-end toys, by definition, have only one possible solution. An example of this would be a peg puzzle where only one particular hole accepts one of its pieces. While this type of toy provides an opportunity to teach a very specific skill (in this case, fitting a peg into a corresponding hole), it’s not capable of being extended beyond that point.
Parents looking for guidance when making decisions based on this philosophy, might consider using resources like montoddler. This resource uses Montessori principles to guide children toward independent learning through play. It focuses on materials that encourage self-directed activity, sensory exploration and hands-on experience with minimal adult involvement.
Selecting a toy based upon age/developmental stage
At approximately 12–18 months of age, children begin to investigate cause and effect. Children this age love to experiment with things like dropping objects down stairs to see what happens when they hit the bottom, banging two pots together, and putting anything they can get their mouths around into their mouths. Toys that enable children to discover the effects of their actions at this age typically involve toys that react to their actions, such as hammering on a wooden board or watching balls roll down ramps. At this developmental stage, children are beginning to understand how objects move through space and how gravity works, so toys that demonstrate these concepts are especially beneficial.
After approximately 18 months, children enter the symbolic play stage. This means that if a child was previously only able to stack cups in order from tallest to shortest, they may now be pretending to pour imaginary drinks from those cups. This indicates a significant increase in cognitive function and toys should be selected accordingly. Toys that promote imaginative play including toy kitchen utensils, pictures books that depict cause-and-effect scenarios, and small dolls and stuffed animals. Research conducted by the Stanford Language and Cognition Lab has demonstrated that toddlers who are exposed to a wide variety of nouns associated with objects are likely to develop wider vocabularies by age three.
At approximately two-three years old, fine motor coordination improves dramatically. Toddlers are now able to accomplish tasks such as working puzzles with large knobs, completing basic lacing boards, sorting shapes into designated areas, creating construction projects with chunky interconnecting pieces, and engaging in simple threading or clay-based sensory experiences. The key factor in determining whether a toy will challenge your child without frustrating them is whether or not the toy falls within the zone of proximal development. This is defined by psychologist Lev Vygotsky as the area in which the learner is challenged just enough to foster growth yet motivated enough to continue.
A toddler doesn’t need a room full of flashy, expensive toys to learn and thrive. What matters most is providing opportunities for meaningful, hands-on play that encourages curiosity, creativity and problem solving. By choosing simple, developmentally appropriate toys that grow alongside your child’s abilities, parents can help support the rapid brain development taking place during these early years. In the end, the best toys are often the ones that leave the most room for imagination.
