Toddler Play: Top Toys and Play Ideas for Two Year Olds
Jess @learnandbloom | August 22, 2022
Play is essential to your toddler's development. It allows them to explore and make sense of the world around them, while developing key social, emotional and cognitive skills. Unstructured play is particularly important at this age. By providing a safe environment for your toddler to follow their interests, try out ideas, practice new skills and take appropriate risks, you can help build their self-esteem and confidence as well as boost their creativity and imagination.
Adults have a crucial role to play - not only in providing the appropriate toys, resources, environment and opportunities for play, but also in joining in! Play is a wonderful way to connect with you toddler, to help them feel loved and secure and to help them develop language and communication skills. Play is good for Mum's and Dad's health and wellbeing too!
Are you searching for toys and play ideas to keep your toddler busy and engaged? In this guide, we hear from teacher and mum of four, Jess, who shares some of the wonderful ways she encourages her toddler to play:
Block Play
We begin block play early in our home. For a crawling/sitting baby, I would fill a small basket with cubes from the Grimm's Large Stepped Pyramid. They often like to tip it out or hit the blocks together to make sound. When they start to become more mobile, my boys like to knock down towers. Eventually they moved onto stacking the blocks one by one. At 2 years old, my son likes to line them up in straight lines as well as build vertically. The buildings become representational and he often adds peg dolls to it.
Pretend Play
Pretend Play with play food has always been one of my boys’ earliest forms of role play as it is familiar to them. They like to pretend to cook, open restaurants, set up picnics, and play 'Mums and Dads'. Including their dolls in their play helps them to demonstrate their caring nature and teaches them to nurture their siblings.
Construction Play
My 2 year old currently likes to line up his toys, then use them to construct something simple. Here he is lining up the Grimm's Building Boards to make a road for his cars. The open-ended nature of these toys mean that they will grow with him as his imagination develops. Later down the track, the building boards will be used for something other than a straight road!
Ball Runs
My son enjoys using our Grimm's Large Rainbow and Grimm's Wooden Balls to make simple ball runs together. Besides pushing the ball and watching it roll again and again, he likes to move pieces around to test whether it will work. It’s a great way to connect and experiment together.
Sorting and Matching
The Gluckskafer Building Slats make a wonderful base for colour sorting. The Grapat Loose Parts are the perfect complement to sorting and colour matching. At this age, he is very much into developing this skill and these make the ideal invitation to learn and sort.
Simple Storytelling
Our Grapat Nins are one of our most used toys. They’re added to almost every building, every story, every small world! They invite children to narrate stories and create dialogue, encouraging imaginative play and building vocabulary.
Wobbel
My 2 year old loves exploring ways he can balance on the Wobbel Board and move around on it - it's a way to let him get active indoors! It also makes the perfect little table for him to play with his toys.
Toy Safety
At Oskar's Wooden Ark, we stock a wonderful range of toys and resources for toddlers. Always check the age recommendation of any product before purchasing. Smaller parts can present as a choking hazard and should not be used by children under three years of age, unless under the strict supervision of an adult. All age recommendations can be found in a product's description on our website.
