Growing up the child of teacher, there were plenty of trips to the teacher supply store! When I made a career change into teaching, you better believe I made that trip to Lakeshore with my teacher ID in hand (hello, Loyalty Club!) to stock up on everything I [thought I] needed to make my classroom ready for a successful year.
If you haven’t been to a Lakeshore Learning store-let me tell you-it’s easy to get sidetrack roaming the aisles…and if you’re not a teacher, this still goes for you too! They have learning materials, furniture, arts and craft supplies, and toys for children starting in the newborn stage! Although I’m not buying new storage bins, pretty bulletin board materials, or Cuisenaire rods (my fave for teaching fractions!!) for my third graders right now, I still manage to find plenty for my toddler. So today, I’ve rustled up my top favorite items from Lakeshore Learning. These are items that I personally own and have used with my 2.5 year old. There are many, many really cool and inventive items available, so in addition to what I’ve listed below, I invite you to check out their website.
This was one of the first purchases for my Little One! I bought this for her when she was around 16-18 months old. The pieces are wooden and very easy to hold, it cleans up nicely, and was really great practice for not only color recognition and sorting, but also hand-eye coordination. We focused on the primary colors first when we would do this together (she had trouble with orange and green I remember!), but she quickly became a pro and would race us as to who could stack the colors the fastest! I recommend this sorting board for anyone with a child starting at 18 months who is learning colors!
Who remembers these little bears from your own preschool days? I remember them specifically in my Kindergarten classroom…yep, take yourselves back to ’89 when Kinder included nap time, sigh. These plastic counting bears come in a tub with four colors and in three sizes. They are not only good for counting (one-to-one number correspondence) but also make great manipulatives for pattern making, color sorting, and sorting by size.
Indestructible Giant Beads & Patterns
At age 2.5, we are just now really using these beads for what they’re intended…yes, making giant bead necklaces has been fun and the threading skill is no joke, but now we are using the pattern cards that come with this tub of beads. The tub contains hard, plastic beads which are easy to grip and shoe-lace like thread for easy threading. The pattern cards included allow you the freedom to show a pattern by shape or by color, or both for older preschoolers. This one is one of my favorite buys because it seems each time we use it, we discover new patterns, new challenges…in other words, it doesn’t get old!
Mix & Max Magnetic Wild Animals
These mix and match animals are so cute! Their three-piece body parts “click” together via magnets making it super easy for little ones to create and recreate animals. What I love about this set is that the pieces aren’t small, so you don’t have to worry about them disappearing as easy as puzzle pieces do. This is one of those activities that is great to pull out when you need a few minutes to do get something done…or a few minutes to just sit and sip your coffee and take a deep breath. This can be a 100% independent activity if you want it to be!
OK, so this game wasn’t something I bought for my toddler initially. It is something I dug out of my teacher closet and had used it for an indoor recess activity (ages 7-9). We would do higher level tasks like multiplication and addition. We also kept score (like darts) because Mrs. Sloop is slightly competitive. Real talk.
For my toddler though, it’s just as fun! There are 2 sides to this board (one letters and one numbers). On the letters side, we toss the magnetic bug to see where it lands and shout the letter! We also name a letter and THEN toss, seeing if we can land on that specific letter. This works on language development and letter identification, as well as gross motor skills of tossing and hand/eye coordination. We do the same thing on the numbers side, however, we are working our way up to number 20 (the “web of numbers” is numbers 1-20). In my opinion, it isn’t developmentally appropriate for my child to know numbers up to 20 just yet, so we tend to stick to the letter side as she is learning her ABCs. This is definitely a game that grows with your child, and we’ll get there (hence the recommended age is 4-8 years)!
Are you ready for this one? You’re probably already thinking, “Um, that doesn’t look appropriate for my toddler!” It is! When your little one gets to school, they will be taught how to count, cardinality, and operations in numbers using a ten-frame which focuses on numbers 5-10. If that’s too much teacher lingo for you, let me break it down: your little one knowing how to manipulate a ten-frame is going to set them up for great success in math! This is the foundation for algebraic thinking and adding and subtracting. In other words, they’re not just memorizing numbers using these…they’re actually learning how many/what the number represents. I’m sure there’s another educator out there reading this and critiquing my explanation of this concept, but just bear with me. Ten-frame cards help children visualize what/how many each number is…and really is the foundational skill they need before learning addition. Ten-frames are a great tool to teach number sense!
This set is a magnetic set, so it’s great if you have a big magnetic board in your playroom. Don’t have one? Don’t worry, neither do I, HA! I just use it on the floor (I’m sure you could use the ‘fridge though, too). I love how the pieces are large and my toddler can move them easily. And although I think my child is the smartest child alive, no we’re not doing all the adding and subtracting in the picture below. We’re counting and learning our numbers. There’s plenty of the other in our future come PreK and Kinder…
I saved this one for last, because this is on my wish list. Although we do a lot of the same idea using cheerios and skittles around here to associate numbers with their quantities, I love the idea of practicing our counting to build on that number sense. What I love about these is that they also require little hands to do some work in working the pegs into the foam boards. As with all other activities with small pieces, if there’s a younger sibling in the picture, just be careful of the choking hazard.
What else should I add to my wish list? Drop a comment below or send me an email!
