Preschoolers:
If you have a three year old, then you’ll likely understand why I want to scream and beat my head against the wall at times. Was it the time a mystery item was flushed and plugged the toilet? Or was it when a half a jug of milk got spilled underneath my refrigerator (I know, I know, he just wanted a drink and was independently getting one, I applaud this but the milk!! Ugh!).

Preschool children are a bundle of energy that go, go, go until they finally drop at the end of day. The early preschooler needs toys without rules (do you notice most don’t go by the rules anyway?). These are open-ended toys, which, left to the imagination, and intention of the child, can do anything. For example, with a set of different colored/shaped bugs kids will pretend play with them, sort them, count them, hide and seek with them, make bug soup with them, and scare their Mom with them… the ways to learn and play are endless.

Older preschoolers (age 4+) suddenly want to know rules and seem to be more eager to go by them. This is a lovely stage because now you can start playing games with them. So many skills are learned just from playing games, like how to take turns, counting, tracking where the playing pieces go, how to be a good winner (or loser).

See Part 3: Chosing Toys for School Aged Children and the full article by Carmen Markowski of Discovery Toys.