Between the ages of 12 to 36 months, your toddler is going through emotional and developmental changes and their brains are fast absorbing the world around them. To enhance their development during this time, there are a huge range of learning tools you can use. So, to help you out, here are some suggestions from the team at the Creative Kids Educare Child Care Centre.
Sight word blocks
Instead of using flash cards, use tactile wooden blocks instead. Simply use a sharpie and write some basic words on every face of your blocks. Your toddler can then roll the cube like a dice and then attempt to say and remember the word that appears. As you toddler gets older you can use the block to create sentences. For example, if you roll the words ‘girl’ ‘the’ and ‘down’, you can create the sentence ‘the girl went down the hill’.
Puzzles
Wooden puzzles are an excellent way to build hand- eye coordination and colour and shape recognition. Make sure that you choose the right puzzle for your toddler’s age. Toddlers around the age of one should be given puzzles where the pieces have easy grip handles, deep indents and colour matching pictures in the indents for easier identification. As they age you can try puzzles without colour matching pictures to give them more of a challenge.
Sensory bins
Sensory bins are great tactile tools for little ones. They teach toddlers about their world and the senses of touch, smell and sight. They help with fine motor skills and can be themed to teach them about elements of daily life. Simply find a plastic bin and fill it with rice, sand, slime, water or small pebbles (your imagination is the only real limit). Create a theme (e.g. zoo, construction, beach) and then decorate with corresponding toys.
At Creative Kids Educare Child Care Centre we are dedicated to enhancing the development of all little ones in our care. We give all our children a variety of experiences while encouraging them to imagine, create and explore. If you want to know more, pop into our Gold Coast centre and speak to one of our child care staff today.