Toys for two-year-olds: build, balance, and real tools

Two is the year a child stops exploring objects and starts using them. They copy you. They want the real spanner, the real broom, the real job. The toys that work at this age let them plan a small thing and finish it with their own hands. Here is what we've seen two-year-olds come back to, in the kindergartens we've supplied since 1989, and how it became Year Two of Chapters.

What Two-Year-Olds Are Learning

Three things, mostly: planning (looking at a picture and building it), balance and structure (why a tower stands or falls), and the wrist turn (nuts, bolts, lids, taps; later, pencils). They are also learning to take turns and to lose a game without the world ending, which a wobbling tower teaches better than any lecture.

Five Toys We Recommend

1. A build-from-a-picture set. A pyramid or a ladder with a card to copy. Matching a 3D thing to a 2D picture is a real cognitive leap, and it's quietly satisfying.
2. Nuts and bolts. Wooden ones, big enough for small fists. Screwing a nut down a thread is the wrist movement they'll use for the next eighty years.
3. A balancing game. Rings onto a rod that wobbles. Take turns, steady hands, lots of laughing, and a first lesson in losing gracefully.
4. A shape-and-colour matching board. Noticing what's the same and what's different is the beginning of sorting, reading and maths.
5. Something with layers. A body-parts or face puzzle in three layers answers the questions they've started asking about themselves.

What to Avoid at This Age

• Toys that only do one thing. At two, a set of arches is a bridge on Monday and a cot for a bear on Tuesday. Buy for open ends.
• Anything they can finish in ten seconds. A toy should be a little too hard for about a month.
• Screens pretending to be toys. The wrist turn, the balance and the planning don't happen on glass.

Year Two, Chapter 1: The Builder

Year Two · Chapter 1: The Builder is this list, made in our own factory from solid wood, with a printed play guide that says what each toy teaches and three ways to play with it:

• Build Wooden Pyramid: stack a pyramid that stays up. Planning and steady hands.
• Build Wooden Ladder: build a ladder from pieces. Patterns and balance.
• Nut & Bolt Tree: screw and unscrew. Real tool skills for small hands.
• The Wobbly Kid: five rings onto a rod, biggest to smallest, with a wobble that makes it a game.
• Natural Shape Matching Board: match shapes and colours. Noticing what is the same and what is different.

Bought on its own, the box is $99 every 3 months on subscription (Chapter 2, The Matcher, follows automatically and you can cancel from your account at any time), or $109 as a one-off box, delivered anywhere in Australia. In a Chapters membership, this box comes with a solid-wood table and chair at your child's height, which are yours to keep, and the next chapter follows every 3 months. Membership is $149 every 3 months or $499 for a year upfront. We send the next chair and table legs free as they grow, and members get 15% off everything in the shop. Tell us their birthday and we'll show you where to start.

Made by Edu Fun in our own factory since 1989. Packed and sent from Pakenham, Victoria.