Second Year Toy Review, Part I

Cons:  Despite that I want to trust Melissa & Doug as a brand, my   really big issue with them is that their stuff is manufactured in China.  Nothing against the Chinese, but they really do not hold their manufacturers to high enough standards, so I put the age here at 18 months+ because "just in case" I'd rather not have recommended to you a toy that may contain toxic chemicals if your child is still at an age where everything goes in the mouth.  (After initially writing this section, I discovered this statement on the Melissa & Doug website regarding the safety of their products.)

Knowing that children are really interested in mobility during the second year, it makes sense that some of their favorite things after turning a year old are things that involve using their newfound ability to get around.  Toddlers are also increasingly fond of doing whatever it is they see older people doing.  Eating big-people food and manually manipulating objects (i.e. using fine motor skills) are two of the biggest things they see us do.  Below are some toys that can help encourage the new toddler in developing these skills.


Lever Box

Price:  Less than $20
Size:  Medium
Age:  9 months+
Durability:  High

This particular version is made by Playskool.  It comes in all different colors depending on where you buy it:  ours is purple.

Pros:  Teaches children how to manipulate various common levers:  turning dials, flipping switches, rocking switches, pushing buttons (though many kids seem born knowing how to push buttons), and sliding switches.  When the child successfully manipulates the lever, a surprise springs up.  The child learns cause and effect this way, and also learns a very basic understanding of having to reset the game by closing the compartment for the surprise (usually an animal figurine).  Makes your child giggle with delight when she is successful.

Cons:  Your child may become a little too adept at things like unlocking the deadbolt or doorknob on your front door, turning off switches on power surge strips, or reprogramming your electronics.  Yet another plastic toy, but it's a very durable one that can handle a fair bit of smacking about.

Educational Value:  Great for developing fine motor skills.  Helps demonstrate cause and effect in a more real and mechanical sense (as compared to electronic toys).


Play Tunnels

Price:  Varies $20 - $40
Size:  Large
Age:  Crawling+ (Manufacturer recommends 3yrs+)
Durability:  Medium

Pros:  Can be used indoors and outdoors.  Helps promote active play.  Flexible and easily positionable.  Stores easily in smaller form.

Cons:  Spring form can lose shape if used too roughly.  In less-rugged brands, metal ends of spring can break through fabric and pose a scratching risk.  (I recommend the brand I have pictured and linked to, as it has held up well despite rough use by older children, though the coils are not fully round.)

Educational Value:  Promotes gross motor skills.  Helps child learn to recognize perspective variances, e.g. Mommy can't see me, but I can see her!


Pretend Food:  Fruits and Veggies (Melissa & Doug)

  

Price:  $20/set

Size:  Medium (set)

Age:  18 months+

Durability:  High

Pros:  Familiarizes kids with foods.  They can play with the fake stuff rather than the stuff you want them to eat.  The Melissa and Doug brand foods are much more durable than most pretend foods and look more realistic in size.  They also feel very similar in texture to the foods they copy.  All pieces are large enough not to be choking hazards.


Educational Value:  Great for initiating pretend play in a way your child can understand.  She can cook for you, feed you, show you how she likes to eat her corn, and clean up afterward.  Helps develop imagination while subtly promoting healthy food choices!


Knob Puzzles

Price:  $10

Size:  Medium

Age:  12 months+

Durability:  Very High

Pros:  This particular puzzle pictured (by Melissa & Doug) is one that I have.  I have seen this same puzzle in the house of every other toddler my son's age.  It's that great a puzzle.  It's made of hard wood, it only has 5 pieces.  The backgrounds behind each piece exactly match the piece.  Each piece can be fitted into its proper spot in more than one orientation, so the child feels more success.  Big wooden knobs on top help the child to control the piece.

Cons:  Not easily stored.  There are puzzle storage racks available, but many already come with puzzles of their own or do not accommodate so large a puzzle, particular with the knobs on top.  The pieces are also rather painful when your child throws them at you.

Educational Value:  Develops fine motor skills.  Helps children learn to sort by shapes and colors.  Promotes focus and concentration on a task.

Toy Review: Toys for the Second Year

We've already covered some great toys for the first year and general attributes of toys that are appropriate for those under 12 months of age.  The second year is full of wonderful amounts of physical and mental development, so of course we can expect all sorts of new toys to correspond to the burgeoning skills of a toddler.

Around the end of the first year or shortly after the start of the second year (i.e. around the first birthday), most children begin walking.  My son wasn't necessarily a prodigy for beginning to walk unassisted at 9 months, nor is any child necessarily deficient for delaying this ability until 15 months.  As children grow and develop, their interests become apparent, and depending on the environments they have experienced and the activities that have captured their foci, different skillsets will appear at different times.  Generally, girls will speak earlier and boys will walk sooner, but there is so much variation here (and over so few months of time is it relevant) that if the roles are reversed there is really nothing abnormal about it.  I did notice in Jackson and many of his friends that a MAJOR mental growth spurt was readily apparent right around the first birthday.  Coincidentally, it was also not until that same span of time until I was even remotely convinced that I might be willing to go through the effort of spawning another human.

So, now that the child is ambulatory and at the early stages of verbal development, as well as having some more neurons firing in her brain, it's time to find something suitable for new forms of play.  After all, a cardboard box and a plastic bottle no longer seem to satisfy her, so to keep her from fishing around in your computer desk for paper clips to gag on, you need to get more creative.  After all, it's far cheaper to buy toys than pay an ER bill.

There are many toys geared toward the 12 months+ crowd.  Many of them are riding toys or musical toys.  In fact, many of the toys I profiled for the first year are still rather relevant, only now instead of gumming them with teething mouths full of drool, your little darling can start to try some of the uses for which the toys were intended.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends the following toys for the Second Year:

• Board books with large pictures, simple stories
• Books and magazines with photographs of babies
• Blocks
• Nesting toys
• Simple shape sorters and pegboards
• Beginner's jigsaw puzzles
• Toys that encourage make-believe play (child lawn mower, kitchen sets, brooms)
• Digging toys (bucket, shovel, rake)
• Dolls of all sizes
• Cars, trucks, trains
• Unbreakable containers of all shapes and sizes
• Bath toys (boats, containers, floating squeak toys)
• Balls of all shapes and sizes
• Push and pull toys
• Outdoor toys (slides, swings, sandbox)
• Beginner's tricycle
• Connecting toys (links, large stringing beads, S-shapes)
• Stuffed animals
• Child keyboard and other musical instruments
• Large crayons
• Toy telephone
• Unbreakable mirrors of all sizes
• Dress-up clothes
• Wooden spoons, old magazines, baskets, cardboard boxes and tubes, other similar safe, unbreakable items she "finds" around the house (i.e. pots and pans)

[Citation]

I agree with much of what is on this list and would also like to point at that there is NO MENTION at all that children should have toys that make electronic sounds or music or have any sort of graphical display.  It's not that it's strictly a bad thing to have those kinds of toys or that your child will not enjoy them.  The problem is that they often teach the wrong lesson:  Children need to learn causal relationships.  If you give a child an electronic keyboard that makes noises not correlated to the action, the child fails to learn how sounds are made.  However if you give a child a piano that plays notes when he pushes the keys, then the connection can be made that the act of depressing the key causes a sound to be made.  Remember:  toys are the learning tools you give to your child to teach him about the world.  This is his first education, and no matter how much YOU know, HE is still unaware of the fundamental laws of the universe.

Check out some toy suggestions next week!  :)

Toy Review: Toys for the Third Year

One of the greatest joys of the third year is the sudden increase in verbal skills.  Kids start yammering away with words you might be surprised they know how to use.  They'll quote movies and songs and familiar phrases used by those around them.  (A personal recent favorite was Jackson's shouts of "Fire in the hole!" as he repeatedly defecated in the bathtub, post-bath.  Classy, eh?)

More fun still, however, she'll be developing her ability to pretend in play.  This faculty begins to gain some small strength in the second year, but by the third year pretend play becomes more important.  Over a gradual period or even perhaps overnight, she will begin to mimic behaviors familiar to her, trying activities that she is used to seeing others do.  Perhaps she will pretend to vacuum or sweep or do dishes.  She might pretend to drive or care for a baby.  And if you encourage this behavior, not only are you taking part in her play, which makes your child very happy, but you are helping to stimulate her mental growth.

For example, if the child has fake food toys that he likes to feign to eat, you can help him expand the imaginative play.  Maybe you set up a fake restaurant area.  One region is the "kitchen", another is the "dining area", and he has to cook and serve the food.  You can help him add seasoning or adjust the cooking temperature.  Perhaps he has chosen some rather unique food combinations:  "Oh, I've never had onions with my bananas before!"  You might also show him how to set a table or hold a pan so he doesn't get burned.  Meanwhile, he learns about the experience of cooking and proper dining behaviors as well as improving his gross and fine motor skills--with the added bonus that he is spending time with one of his absolute most favorite people of all time.

The third year focuses a great deal on skill refinement as well.  Her crayon drawings on your furniture will be more accurate with their circles.  When she knocks her stack of blocks off the table onto your toes, you can bet it was a much higher stack than she used to be able to make; and just look at how much farther those pieces can fly!

Interestingly, the American Academy of Pediatrics does not include a list of toys appropriate to the third year of life in its hallmark volume for parents:  Caring for Your Baby and Young Child: Birth to Age Five.  While it may or may not be present in the Fifth Edition, this is not explicitly indicated in the penultimate "revised" edition, which is the version I have and use.  Instead there is a box detailing ways to help develop your child's burgeoning intellect.

For some more ideas on how to help your child develop his natural drive to learn and improve, check out this list provided in the AAP book (referenced in the paragraph above) on page 330.  To save on space, I have only transcribed the first sentence of most of the bullet points:

• Encourage creative play, building, and drawing. Provide the time and tools for playful learning.
• Be attentive to your child's rhythms and moods.
• Give consistent warm, physical contact--hugging, skin-to-skin, body-to-body contact--to establish your child's sense of security and well-being.
• Talk to or sing to your child during dressing, bathing, feeding, playing, walking, and driving, using adult talk.
• Read to your child every day.
• If you speak a foreign language, use it at home.
• Introduce your child to musical instruments.
• Play calm and melodic music for your child.
• Listen to and answer your child's questions.
• Spend one-on-one personal time with your child each day.
• Offer your child simple choices in appropriate situations throughout the day.
• Help your child use words to describe emotions and to express feelings such as happiness, joy, anger, and fear.
• Limit your child's television viewing and video time; avoid violent cartoons.
• Promote out-of-home social experience such as preschool programs and playgroups in which your child can play and interact with other children.
• Acknowledge desirable behaviors frequently.
• Make sure other people who provide care and supervision for your child understand the importance of forming a loving and comforting relationship with her.
• Spend time on the floor playing with your child every day.
• Choose quality child care that is affectionate, responsive, educational, and safe; visit your child care provider frequently and share your ideas about positive caregiving.

Next week, I'll begin showcasing some of the toys that I've found to be great for the third year.  See you next Wednesday!