5 Best Educational Toys for Toddlers

Being an educator, appropriate developmental and educational toys for my toddler are important to me. Here are a few of my phonics/language arts, geography and science recommendations.

Refrigerator Phonics Learning
I love these refrigerator learning systems. My daughter perfected her abc’s and their sounds with the single letter set. When you put a letter into the holder it says the letter and all of the sounds that it makes in a sing-song voice. The word whammer is great for her right now. She creates words and says them back. It’s fun for her and she’s learning at the same time.

Leap Pad
Our toddler loves her leap pads. She is almost 4 and has just moved to this leap pad. It teaches phonics and word and letter recognition. She is beginning to understand many sight words now, and knows how sentences are contsructed on a page. When children start kindergarten, teachers often will assess their knowledge of reading. Do they know how to turn pages in the correct direction, do they know where a sentence starts and ends, do they understand that we read from left to right? The leap pad gives some instruction in this area. This particular Leap Pad has a microphone so you or your child can record yourself reading and play it back.

Make Believe Time
Toddlers love to make believe. Puppets are a great way to build vocabulary and story telling skills. You can make your own puppets and theater or purchase this one from Amazon. We bought a bunch of great puppets from costco that were inexpensive and great quality.

Geography Through Globes
Learning the different contintents, how the world looks and how it spins on its axis are large concepts to accept. Globes help children find a bit of meaning in this area. The fly and learn globe is a great toddler globe. It is interactive in teaching geography, people, places, the wonders of the world, languages and music. The joystick allows the child to control the direction of the plane, north, south, east or west, around the globe. The Explorer Globe has three skill levels and is a great globe for the more advanced student. It has thousands of facts, national anthems and information on currencies. Children learn about states, countries and continents. There is a magic pen and a world clock too.

Educational Science Toys
I’ve linked to a few science toys that I love. Children love to experiment with water. The water tub is a great learning tool for learning how water moves through different containers, density of objects (does it float or sink?) and how water moves. The hydroponics greenhouse grows plants or herbs in a non-soil environment. Kids love to watch what they plant grow and then possibly eat the result! The ant habitat is a self-sustaining environment. No food or sand is needed, instead a non-toxic gel, that was based on a 2003 space shuttle experiment, provides the proper nutrition and work environment for tunneling. A magnifying glass and zoom lens aids in close-up observing.

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