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No parent needs a child care book as much as the parent of a toddler! The toddler years are an exciting and rewarding time, as your child learns to stand, walk, say words, and use the potty for the first time. Yet, along with all of these incredible milestones come all sorts of daunting parental challenges – from continuous cries in the middle of the night to the first boo-boos to erratic eating habits to public temper tantrums. What is a parent to do? (Read more…)

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This is a resource page which includes links to all the specific articles on teaching toddlers, which are categorized below by chronological order.

Your comments are always welcome in the original article page and I encourage you to join the discussion. If you have any questions, feel free to email me at admin[at]destinybaby.com.

If you find this page useful, feel free to share it with others.

1. Early learning with your newborn

This article organizes and identifies where to find freely available, authoritative information on infant and early child development, especially developmental milestones for infants and toddlers. This is a guide for parents, caregivers and other family and friends who buy toys and games for our babies and children. Ideally, such toys should support the developmental stages of growth of a child. The main take away points are that infants and toddlers develop the basic mental processes of learning from birth to age 3 (focus, paying attention, persistence through frustration, communication and understanding, and pattern recognition).

2. Teaching toddlers to learn math

In this article, you will learn how mathematics and counting (along with reading and writing) are fundamental parts of your child’s learning, and the key concepts your child must learn before kindergarten in order to succeed in math in grade school. Preschoolers should already be on the path towards thinking of themselves as mathematicians, able to reason mathematically and to communicate mathematical ideas by talking and writing.

3. How to teach toddlers about science concepts

There are national science education standards that outline what students need to know, understand and be able to do in order to be scientifically literate at various grade levels. This article lays out the concepts your preschooler needs to know, with suggestions for how parents can teach science concepts.

4. Simple Science Activities You Can Do with your Toddler or Preschooler

This article discusses simple activities for incorporating science learning into your child’s everyday routine, outlining five basic scientific concepts for your child to build on learning future scientific facts.

5. How to teach toddlers to read with picture books

Different kinds of activities, including unstructured play, impact early learning for infants, toddlers and preschoolers. This article explains why the very common parent-child activity of picture-book reading may be the most effective way to encourage early knowledge and cognitive development. Books with pictures seem to be the ultimate educational learning toy.

6. How to teach toddlers with daily chores

This article shows ways to incorporate a learning curriculum for toddlers and preschoolers into everyday activities like letting children help with cleanup. As early as age two, learning to participate is another educational experience that leads to new aspects of independence. Our children learn to be part of the family, and later, part of the community, by helping.

7. Teaching toddlers through unstructured play

This article shows how the best toys are those that can be used in a variety of ways, some of which your child will invent themselves. It also explains the importance of letting toddlers and preschoolers have regular, uninterrupted playtime that best promotes freedom and creativity.

8. Resources for teaching toddlers to read, count and become computer literate at home

This article reviews several commercial learning tools for toddlers that teach phonics, math, computer literacy, and more.

9. Teaching toddlers science with fun activities

This article explains the many simple science activities can you initiate to get your child to go down the scientific learning path. You don’t have to overwhelm them with a lot of bells and whistles; simple works best. You will learn how to introduce a few ideas and find hobbies or activities based on your child’s personality and interests to build cumulative understanding of scientific concepts.

10. Teaching toddlers science at home

This article highlights a selection of inexpensive toys and kits for teaching science to toddlers, preschoolers and young school-age children right at home. The types of science activities for toddlers covered by these kids include weather and climate, electricity, magnetism, the human body, mirrors, surface tensions, geology topics like volcanoes and oceans, scents, and more.

11. Teaching toddlers to learn online

This article is a review of what we found to be among the best (and free) sites online that feature learning games and activities for toddlers and preschoolers. While there lots of toddler games online offered by every toymaker, company, cartoon, and the like, how many are truly learning resources? This big, annotated list of sites reviewed by us has the answer.

Additional Resources

Here are some more posts which are not part of the article series, categorized by topics.

How to find and save on the best expert picked educational toys

Resources for turning lesson plans into online interactive games

Can video games stimulate learning?

Just how critical is reading to child development? This article also features links to reading resources for young children and opportunities to donate books for disadvantaged children.

Reviews of toddler activity tables, learning tables and musical tables

Reviews of floor play and activity mats for infants and toddlers

Resources keeping up with child development research and the best educational toys and games for toddlers and preschoolers

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More information has just come out in the latest report from the US Public Interest Research Group (PIRG). Over at the preschooler page on About.com, they are highlighting a new report from PIRG, “Trouble in Toyland.” The report features the latest toys that pose choking hazards, excessive amounts of lead and hormones or are too loud and could harm tiny eardrums. US PIRG has also launched an accompanying smart phone website that lets you look up hazardous toys right from your phone while you are out shopping at the store, and lets your report hazardous toys you find. The PIRG is all about empowering consumers and this is a great tool to do just that while keeping our children safe.

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In the past, we have talked about the educational potential of video games to stimulate learning. For this new series, all games were developed by Mama Destiny and our team using the wonderful and free curriculum development tools over at Classtools.net. If you are an educator, I highly encourage you to check out the website– you can easily create games from your lesson plans to be completed online, which lets you achieve two goals–promoting the use of computer technology and creating subject specific learning activities. Check out the first game below. It’s a really simple quiz to help little ones learn about the human body. One of the first things Destiny Baby could do was identify his eyes, nose, fingers, and toes, and we still like to play the naming game today. Hope you enjoy!

This is not an ad. It is a free educational game you can play right now!

Click here for full screen version

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Now when it comes to choosing the best toys for toddler and young child development, you can take it a step further and have child development experts do it for you over at eBeanstalk.com. Each toy on their site is expert-selected and categorized by the child’s age. In fact if a child in your life has an upcoming birthday, you might consider ordering a gift series (with free shipping!) for them. Ebeanstalk.com will automatically send out a new toy every 3 months throughout the year, each tailored to your child’s mental development! Pretty cool, eh! We love the service and the customer service over at are extremely friendly and helpful.

These days you can both stay on top of the latest research on child development and have expert-recommended toddler toys and best-selling learning toys delivered to your doorstep!

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How Do I Get My Child to Say ‘Yes’?
By: Shari Harpaz, CCC-SLP (Speech-Language
Pathologist)

Does your child often respond ‘no’ when you ask them a question? When asked a ‘yes’ or ‘no’, most children will respond ‘no’ more often than ‘yes.’

Toddlers and pre-schoolers are at an age when they are egocentric and/or establishing independence (see all milestones). By saying ‘no’ they are making a clear statement that they don’t want to do something and now your hands are tied if you really needed them to do it. So what should a parent do?

Here are some tips to help get more of the response you’re looking for:

1. Try and ask questions in a “what”? Or “where”? Format instead of yes/no whenever possible. For example: if you’re child is pointing and you can’t determine what they want instead of saying “Do you want juice?” and having to go thru a list of items, ask “what do you want?”

2. Give your child a choice of 2-3 things you are willing to give them. (“Do you want to go to the park or to the book store”)? This way they feel empowered that they chose the activity, and you didn’t have to negotiate after a ‘no’ response.

3. Sometimes your best option is to simply TELL your child that this is what you are going to do/eat/have etc. Remember you’re the parent and know what’s best so don’t let your little negotiators always get their way!

For some activities that don’t involve ‘yes/no’ answers, check out…

You pick the game you want to play: Hand Picked Games at ebeanstalk.com

Which puzzle do you want to play with: Hand Picked Puzzles by the ebeanstalk.com Team of Mothers

Let’s “Pretend Play” and have some fun: Hand Picked Pretend Toys by the ebeanstalk.com Team of Experts

Check out additional discounts and deals from all of DestinyBaby.com merchants!

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We came across a new article from LiveScience.com at Yahoo! News, titled “Why Toddlers Don’t Do What They’re Told.” As Destiny Baby is now in his twos, you know we had to investigate. The article reports on a study of behavior among 3-and-a-half-year-olds and 8-year-olds. Findings are published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The neat things is that the study dispels the idea of kids as “little adults” who cannot do things as well. Rather, their minds work very differently.

Using pupil diameter to measure mental effort after asking the two groups of children to follow a sequence of activities, the punchline is that you cannot require your toddler to prepare for the future. No matter how much you tell them it is cold outside, that won’t make them get their coats. You have to try to mentally put them in the conflict or choice that will elicit the behavior you want. As the article notes, “3-year-olds neither plan for the future nor live completely in the present. Instead, they call up the past as they need it.” Useful to think about when doing educational learning activities with your little one!

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But what about everyday activities like letting children help with cleanup? Helping children develop their independence is not an easy task, but it is an important learning experience for both adults and children. Our children must be free to come to us and feel safe enough to go from us.

From the time our children take their first steps, the whole world becomes a place to explore. We fear for our chiildren even as we feel pride at their consuming curiosity and desire to learn that underlies their independence. Of course, we childproof the house as best we can and do our homework as parents (made easier by signing up for toy and product recalls via free email alerts from the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) in choosing safe toys to encourage the confidence they develop from being allowed to explore freely. Noise and touching are good! (Tell yourself that.)

So, where and when do chores come in? As early as age two, learning to participate is another educational experience that leads to new aspects of independence. It may be easier to do things yourself, but your child will become more confident when she or he is allowed to help. For example, when I do the laundry, my two year old helps to carry the lighter things (the fabric softener, an almost empty detergent bottle, a small bag of his clothes) and he loves it. (The added bonus is that it keeps him near me and diverts him from running away when we step outside.)

Our children learn to be part of the family, and later, part of the community, by helping. It is important to show children how much fun these activities are. Just as committed as we are to bringing science activities and teaching math concepts to toddlers and preschoolers, showing and expressing appreciation for a task they have completed and forgiving the occasional mistake are just as critical to education, learning and independence in our children.

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