Age 2 · numbers, shapes and thinking · 2 activities
Numbers, Shapes and Thinking activities for 2 year olds
Two activities where the object tells your child the answer, and four more on other shelves doing the same job.
At two, thinking is done with the hands. The first logic question a child asks is whether this fits into that, and they ask it with their whole arm. The peg goes into the hole that takes it or it does not. The disc goes through the slot or it comes back. Neither answer needs an adult, and that is the point of both activities here.
Let the object do the correcting. It is what makes these two things a two year old will do alone at the end of the table for four or five minutes while you cook, and it is what keeps the whole business friendly: nobody is marking anything. If a disc will not go through, your child turns it. If a peg will not seat, your child finds another hole.
Counting, sorting and pattern get much more room later. The thinking shelf runs to fifteen across all ages, and written numerals first show up around three or four with an egg carton and a handful of dried beans, on the four year old page.
The two
Both were written for two and both keep working at three and four, because the list is built from the whole range an activity suits rather than its single best age. Every line gives the setup, the play time and whether anything has to be bought.
- Peg and Hole Matching Your child picks up a fat peg, lines it up over a hole that just fits it, and pushes it home. none once made · 5 to 10 min · household only
- Posting and Slotting Your child pushes a plastic lid through a slot cut in a tub, hears it land, and then takes the tub lid off and finds it again. 2 min · 5 to 10 min · household only
Neither has to be bought. A block of packing foam and some fat crayons makes one, a tub and a handful of milk bottle lids makes the other, in about five minutes each.
Four more where a two year old is working something out
These are filed under hands, because that is where the effort goes, and the thinking in them is real all the same: turn the disc until it matches the slot, put one cotton ball in each cup and no cup twice, go round the rim until the rim runs out, pour until the jug is empty and then find out where the water went.
- Cardboard Slotting and Coin Drop Your child turns a disc until it lines up with the slot, posts it, and listens for it landing. 15 min, once · 5 to 10 min · household only
- Clothespin Pinching Your child squeezes a wooden clothes peg open and clips it onto the rim of a bowl, and then does it forty more times. no setup · 5 to 10 min · household only
- Kitchen Tongs and Ice Tray Transfer Your child picks up a cotton wool ball with kitchen tongs, carries it across the table and drops it into an ice cube tray, twelve cups in a row. no setup · 5 to 10 min · household only
- Water Pouring and Transfer Your child pours water from one small jug into another, and then back again, and again, until the table is wet. 3 min · 5 to 10 min · household only