Trying to Figure Out Age Appropriate Toys to Engage My 2 1/2 Year Old Son

My son (2 1/2) loves building blocks. He also is very interested in Jump Start Toddler Cd's for the computer and it's fun for me to sit with him while he shows me what he's learning.

Also, just last night I bought a dry erase book to start tracing abc's and shapes. He LOVES it! and there's no mess. Get two so you can do one too!

Hope you find what you're looking for.

Oh yes, and small puzzles are fun too!

We've spent a boat load of money on toys......and have learned that expensive toys is just not the answer. It just makes the parents feel better (although we do like blocks & puzzles!)

Our 2 1/2 son loves the following: riding his little bikes; playing baseball (a plastic bat and lots of large colorful balls), hockey (from the dollar store -- just pushing ball back and forth --"stick down":), wrestling with stuffed animals, "fumble" -throw football and both try to dive on top of it, dancing (fast/slow) any music, coloring (this doesn't last long for some reason --he likes to be pretty active), blocks -- building towers very tall (and then knocking it over is exciting), a balloon is lots of fun (keeping it up in the air)..........reading, of course........my main point is that spending money on toys is really a waste......(we've learned the hard way).......oh, and we just started playing "Bingo" -- you create the bingo board yourself and use anything for markers.....to teach anything you want.........letters, colors, words.......mainly your attention and time is what they want.....my son usually directs our play and he's pretty inventive sometimes -- oh,
and my older daughters play a lot with dolls......my son wants to play too - it just usually involves a dinosaur eating a doll......kinda funny the differences.
Hope this helped....and i'm always looking for ideas too, so i'm glad you asked the question.
(p.s.
"tea time is fun too;
he likes to get all the play dishes and have "tea"
like his older sisters.....runs around "setting table"

Hi L.,
It's nice to meet you. I also have a 2 1/2 year old son!
I work fulltime and he goes to a daycare I'm really happy with. We usually sing songs that he learns at daycare, and count. He loves the toys that sing and play music so that he can sing along.

I also use flashcards with images on them, like colors, and letters or objects on them, he likes that.

I also participate in playdate/date night swap with other Moms.

Do you live in Gainesville? If so we would love to add you to our playdate/date night swappings! The more the merrier!

Good morning. If you go to the PlaySkool, babycenter.com website and Fisher-Price websites (if you are not too nervous about these recalls), they have toys listed by age levels. It's been very helpful for us. THey give descriptions and pictures and tell you what senses are stimulated and what skills are nurtured with each toy. As a former teacher myself, I make sure to purchase toys that are educational in some way. But that's not to say I don't like the occasional non-educational toy, too! Hope this helps. :)

A couple of helpful books on activities and games for children you can look into are 365 Games Smart Toddlers Play by Sheila Ellison or The 2,000 Best Games and Activities by Susan Kettmann. There are all sorts of ideas in these books. Also you can engage him in some art activities. Familyfun.com or Michaels.com both have great ideas for toddlers. I've used all these resources and have had fun with my daughter. Reading is also a great past time that engages both of you as well as any educational toys to help them learn their ABCs or 123s. They also love immaginative play and when it's not so hot out, they love to be outside exploring. Hope some of these resources are helpful.

I also find that spending money doesn't mean my 2-year-old son is going to be interested. He's got lots of cool fisher price/leap frog drums and the one he plays with the most is the one I made for him out of an oatmeal can. Sometimes we rock out and dance together on the various play instruments he has. Once, he insisted I continue playing the xylophone while he danced, that was a lot of fun. We color together, although I noticed he got bored with crayons. I now mix it up with markers or gel pens (just remember to put them away when you’re finished).

Lately, when I’ve been cooking or making sandwiches, I sit him on the counter next to me so he can watch and “help” while I cook. It’s a good time to name foods and let him touch stuff. You just have to very clear that some things are hot and he’s not to touch it. Another good activity for him while you cook is magnets. I know leap frog has an alphabet and farm animal set (it’s been on my wish-list for a while). It’s not as engaging, but at least you’re in the same room, he’s busy and you can still talk to him about what he’s playing with.

Taking walks together or playing outside is fun and tires him out. If it’s too hot outside or raining, we’ll get physical inside. I’ll crawl around on my hands and knees saying, “I’m going to get you!” I tickle him and we wrestle around. There are a lot of suggestions on here, hope you find one that works for you two.

Alphabet puzzles are really good at that age, especially the big alphabet puzzle floor mat. Number puzzles, Leap Frog Leap Pads, etc. If he is talking pretty well and can understand pretty well, you can also try the VTech VSmile. It is a video game for children. Doing little things like playing rhyming games, reading poems and books can help at that age also.

HTH,
V.

L.- my son turned two in August, and his favorite toy right now is one he got for his birthday. I think it's called "Gearation" by Tomy. My brother-in-law got it for him at Learning Express in the Winter Park Village, but I've also seen it at Timmy's Toy Chest in Lake Mary. It's not cheap-- I think it was $30-- but my son plays with it all the time and LOVES it. It has really cute little magnetic gears that stick to a background, and they turn and click and make cool sounds and designs. My son is obsessed with wheels of any kind-- on toy cars and trucks, on strollers, etc-- so he loves to play with these gears and switch them around. His other favorite toy right now is a shape sorter made by Parents Magazine (I think it was from Target). It has a circle, square, triangle, heart, and star-- all different colors with an animal attached to the shape-- and you drop the shapes into the top. As the shapes are sliding down, they make a cute little squeaking noise, and my son thinks it's hilarious. He'll play with that over and over again, and often wants to take it to bed at night to play until he falls asleep. He also loves puzzles-- the chunky Melissa and Doug wooden ones-- and his Little People Ramps Around Garage. He loves to make the cars go down the ramp and the chute. It comes with cars, but my son uses all his different Matchbox or Cars (the movie) cars on it. He also loves to color. He got a bunch of Color Wonder books for his birthday-- the Crayola ones that write clear unless they're on the special Color Wonder paper. He really loves to scribble with those. They're kind of expensive, though, so you could use washable markers and paper if you wanted. My son has a bad habit of wanting to put the markers in his mouth, so I took the washable markers away until he's a little older. My son seems to love anything that he can stack or sort or fit together, like blocks, shape sorters, puzzles, etc. He also loves toys where you can drop toy balls into objects, like the Fisher Price Roll-Arounds Drop and Roar Dinosaur, the V-Tech Play and Learn Fun Fair (such a cute toy-- he got it for his first birthday and still plays with it), the Playskool Busy Ball Popper (he played with that one so much that the motor burned out), and this toy made by Lamaze-- can't remember what it's called, but it has a monkey playing bongo-type drums, and you pound the balls into the drums with a little club, and music plays and the monkey dances when the balls go through. My son thinks that's so funny. I think we got that at Target. But basically anything a boy can stack, sort, drop things into or fit things into, or fill up and dump out, or roll across the floor-- he should be in hog heaven!! That can be as simple as the big chunky Leggos for little boys, wooden blocks, all types of balls or cars/trucks/trains, puzzles, and containers where they can drop things in and dump them back out. I know it's more work for you to clean it all up at the end of the day, but they LOVE to do it!! :) Let me know if you find something fun that you would recommend to me. Sorry this is so long-- I'm Irish! :) Have fun! ~B.