This post is in collaboration with Very.
One of the lovely things about having a 17-month-old granddaughter is being reminded just how much toddlers learn without having the faintest idea they’re doing it.
Rosie has never once got up in the morning and thought, ‘You know what I really need to work on today? My fine motor skills.’ She has, however, spent a significant amount of time putting things inside other things, taking them out again, building towers purely for the pleasure of knocking them over and pointing urgently at objects while demanding to know what they’re called.
At 17 months old, play is learning. Every time Rosie tries to stack one thing on top of another, works out how two pieces fit together or copies a new word, she’s experimenting with things like cause and effect, coordination, language and problem solving.
The best bit is that, as far as she’s concerned, she’s just having fun.
Very recently sent us a selection of toys to explore this idea of learning through play, including building blocks from LEGO DUPLO and Melissa & Doug, plus some Ms Rachel talking flash cards. Ms Rachel is currently one of Rosie’s favourite people in the entire world, so I felt fairly confident those would go down well.
Building, knocking down and starting again
There’s something wonderfully simple about building blocks.
Give a toddler a pile of blocks and there are no complicated rules to follow or instructions to get wrong. They can stack them, line them up, sort them, carry them around, put them into containers, take them out again and, of course, experience the immense satisfaction of knocking down whatever an adult has painstakingly built for them.
Rosie is at exactly the age where this kind of experimenting is fascinating. What happens if I put this one here? Will that one fit on top? How high can I make this before it falls over? What happens if I throw this one across the room?
Okay, so possibly that last one isn’t an officially recognised developmental milestone, but you get the idea.
The Melissa & Doug Ms Rachel Wooden Learning Blocks and Activity Cards are particularly appealing for Rosie because of the familiar Ms Rachel connection, but I like that there’s much more to them than that. There are lots of different ways to play, from simply handling and stacking the blocks to matching, sorting and using the activity cards as children get older.
It’s why I’ve always liked traditional building blocks as a toy. They’re incredibly simple, but that simplicity leaves space for children to decide what they want to do with them.
Learning without realising you’re learning
The two LEGO DUPLO sets work on the same principle.
The LEGO DUPLO Creative Vehicles set introduces wheels into the equation, which naturally creates all kinds of possibilities for building, pushing and experimenting. Rather than there being one finished object that’s the ‘correct’ answer, pieces can be swapped around and combined to make different vehicles.
We’ve also got the classic LEGO DUPLO Brick Box waiting for Rosie once she hits the recommended 18-month age. It contains 65 colourful pieces, including bricks as well as familiar objects such as a car, windows, flowers and number bricks, so there’s plenty of scope for the way she plays with it to change as she gets older.
That’s one of the things I really value in toys for this age. Toddlers develop so quickly that something they play with in one way now can become an entirely different toy six months later. At first, building might simply mean working out how two pieces connect. Later it becomes towers, cars, houses and increasingly elaborate creations that require you to nod seriously and agree that yes, of course you could tell it was a dinosaur.
Not all learning looks the same
Of course, learning through play isn’t only about building.
Rosie is at a brilliant stage with language at the moment, where she understands an almost suspicious amount of what you say and seems to be picking up new words all the time. The Ms Rachel First Words Talking Flash Cards tap into this side of play, using pictures, words and sounds to encourage toddlers to make connections.
I’m not talking about sitting a 17-month-old down at a desk and announcing that it’s time for a double lesson in vocabulary. It’s much more about following their interest – looking at pictures together, naming things, repeating sounds and letting them make connections with things they recognise from everyday life.
The same is true of sensory toys. Exploring colours, textures, shapes, sounds and movement might look like straightforward play to us, but for a toddler it’s all information. They’re constantly testing ideas and discovering how things work.
Toys that leave room for imagination
I think that’s probably the common thread between the toys I like most for Rosie: they leave some of the work to her.
A toy doesn’t necessarily need flashing lights or seventeen different functions to hold a toddler’s attention. Sometimes the most interesting thing you can give them is a collection of pieces and the freedom to see what happens.
Building blocks are particularly good for this because there’s no real end point. You don’t ‘finish’ playing with DUPLO. You build something, pull it apart and build something else. You make a tower today and a car tomorrow. As children get older, their imagination starts doing more and more of the work.
There’s also something rather lovely about sitting on the floor and building together. The campaign brief actually talks about shared, hands-on play – building houses or towers, creating stories around constructions and sorting and matching pieces – and I can see exactly why. Toys – SEO Blogger Campaign Cre… You don’t have to organise an elaborate educational activity; sometimes you just need to tip a box of bricks onto the floor and join in.
Choosing toys that can grow with them
With Christmas approaching, it’s something I’m increasingly conscious of when buying for Rosie. Toddlers change so quickly that I like toys with a bit of longevity – things that don’t only work at one very specific developmental stage.
The wooden blocks, talking flash cards and DUPLO all have that potential. Rosie can explore them in a very simple way now and discover completely different ways of using them as her language, coordination, problem-solving skills and imagination develop.
If you’re buying for little ones this year, Very has a guide to Christmas toys covering ideas for different ages and interests.
Watching Rosie play has reminded me that we probably don’t need to worry too much about making play ‘educational’ in the first place. Toddlers are already busy experimenting, copying, testing, building, sorting and generally trying to work out how the world works.
Our job is mainly to give them interesting things to explore, sit down on the floor with them occasionally, and try not to take it personally when they immediately knock over the tower we’ve spent the last five minutes building.
Although if it has Ms Rachel’s face on it, in Rosie’s case, that definitely helps.