The season is upon us and it’s time to shop for all of those special little toddlers in our lives!  We want to give gifts that will light up their little faces and bring them lots of joy.  But there are a few other things that you may want to consider when shopping for little kids.  Children learn a lot from play and giving them a learning toy will not only delight them but stimulate their imagination and aid in their development.

Toddlers can learn a great deal through their environment.  Through touch, taste, smell, and sound, they start to associate certain combinations of senses with feelings and emotions.  They feel everything so strongly at this age, because they have yet to learn how to control certain feelings.  Pretend play can help them to practice dealing with certain situations by allowing them to decide how they should react when they are not experiencing the feelings themselves.

For example, doll play can be extremely beneficial for boys and girls.  As they start to pretend to comfort another child, they learn through association how they themselves should act in the same predicament.  You can use this to teach them certain behaviors, such as potty training or calming down after they get hurt.

Developmental toys, such as blocks and other preschool toys, help them build on the senses and feelings that they recognize.  They learn to apply their knowledge to other situations.  This builds their confidence and increases their self-control, allowing them to move more easily from one developmental stage to another.

An activity table is a good choice for a young toddler.  Activity tables often encourage small children to use their fine and gross motor skills, while they figure out problems and entertain themselves.  Learning to use their skills to stimulate their senses helps them to figure out how to learn from their environment.  Children who don’t figure this out often are developmentally delayed in a lot of areas.

As toddlers progress, they get more elaborate with their play.  Banging and throwing become more purposeful movements that they design to see a certain outcome.  Controlling outcomes helps exploring toddlers to feel in control of certain situations.  They learn to imagine the future and what it might hold.  For example, they may quickly figure out that they can push four beads up the wire slowly and watch them fall one by one into a stack.  Knowing what is about to happen helps them to transfer that skill of guessing what will happen into their everyday lives, fostering the progression of problem solving skills that will serve them for the rest of their lives.

If you are buying gifts for a toddler this Christmas, consider preschool toys, such as an activity table, that will help them grow and develop in a positive direction.