How to Build Toys for Toddlers
Parents think that they must buy toys for their children or that toys must be carefully designed to "teach" academic concepts. The truth is that children --- especially toddlers --- learn by playing, exploring and manipulating the world around them. There are simple toys that generations of parents have given their children that they've made themselves. These simple toys are often the ones most used and most cherished.
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Things You'll Need
- Scrap lumber
- Wood beads and wheels (available at craft stores)
- Dowels
- Non-corrosive wood screws
- Wood glue or non-toxic adhesive
- Non-toxic paints and varnishes
- String
- PVC pipe and adhesive
- Saws, screwdrivers, scissors, paintbrushes
Instructions
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Keep it simple. Build toys that are small enough to manipulate but too large to put in toddler's mouth. Attach pieces securely and use large wheels, beads and other component pieces. Use natural materials like wood and cotton that are easier to work with and more durable than plastics. Minimize detail in decorating toys; suggest happiness with a smile, a bird with a wing, a dinosaur with a jagged line painted on the ridge of its back. Make a rattle by putting a few pieces of pasta inside an old floppy disc box or make a drum out of a paper oatmeal canister.
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Build toys that can be used in a variety of ways to encourage imagination and creativity. There's a reason that blocks have always been a favorite. Cut some shapes out of a 2-by-4, sand carefully and paint and watch the castles and bridges that get built. Build blocks out small cardboard book boxes and your child will build a fort or other place to call his own. Letter blocks, an old favorite, can make names or build skyscrapers. The more versatile the toy, the more (and longer) it will be used. Build a series of different-sized five-sided boxes that nest inside each other or can be stacked one on top of another.
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Use primary and bright colors. Little minds are just learning to discern the difference between colors and bright colors help define differences. Color different sized blocks of the same shape the same. Use color to differentiate parts of a toy so a toddler can follow simple instructions or explain which toy she put away. Build simple shapes, drill holes and add wheels with dowel-axles, paint brightly, add a string and watch your toddler take her new friends off exploring.
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Build toys that are age-appropriate for developmental tasks. Toddlers are learning to do things for themselves, so they need toys that they can manipulate and explore by themselves. Puzzles, made with pictures glued to fiberboard and cut into four or five smooth-sided pieces then varnished carefully, make great challenges for little minds. A counting board, made with colored beads and dowels anchored in a frame of 1-inch-by-2-inch wood, introduce toddler to the concepts of more and less and, if constructed properly, will provide a long-lasting learning tool.
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Encourage movement. Sitting on the floor is fine but toddlers need to use their legs and work on balance. Any riding toys that require the child to push with his feet and adapt to a moving vehicle prepares him for wagons and tricycles. The classic seat on a board on top of a pair of wheels with a modified steering wheel on the front --- sort of an oversized roller skate without the lightning-fast wheels --- is a good way to encourage strength and coordination. If your child is walking, build a box of PVC pipe and attach wheels to the four bottom corners so he can walk around inside.
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Tips & Warnings
Watch what your child plays with and what he watches. These observations will give you information as to what interests him and is likely to draw his attention --- information that will help you build the type of toys and color them in a way to make them most attractive. Challenge your child with toys that are just a bit beyond his developmental ability.
Never use preserved lumber for children's toys --- it often contains toxic chemicals like arsenic. Toddlers use their mouths as a sense the same as touch, smell or sight. Never put anything in or on a toy that a child could swallow or that might contain toxic substances.
Resources
- Photo Credit Woodcraft, Kent State University, Toys and Joys
