It seems lately that we often hear about STEM and its importance. As parents we can introduce concepts at an early age by buying STEM toys for toddlers and babies.
The acronym STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, but the concept runs a bit deeper.
That said, when it comes to toys the idea is more straightforward: toys that encourage students to engage with the disciplines and/or develop skills that would benefit them in STEM careers (or life in general).
These skills can include problem-solving, creativity, intellectual curiosity, and flexibility.
Tool-Based STEM Toys
If your child(ren) are anything like my daughter, they love walking around and copying what you do. My wife and I often do small projects around the house, so buying our kid her own tool set seemed a natural thing.
Besides that, though, tool-based toys are great for kids to inspire creativity. CiCi (our daughter) often likes to tell us about the project she is building. Even outside of creative play, drill sets like Design & Drill Brightworks help kids learn the basics of building.
Brightworks’ drill set mixes color learning with tools to offer a fun drilling activity.
You can read our review to learn more, but my child and nephew loved playing with this last Christmas. It was great watching them drill screws while attempting to replicate the patterns provided in the manual.
The Black & Decker kids’ tool set packs a lot of tools into a small price tag.
Children receive all of the most common tools found around the house, as well as hardware to practice with and a drill that actually turns.
Magnetic Toys
Magnetic toys come in many shapes and sizes: geometric tiles, fishing and bugcatching games, animals, letters, and more. At heart, though, they have the same (obvious) thing in common: magnets that enable toddlers to make connections.
My family in particularly enjoys Magformers and Tegu Blocks because of their ability to serve double duty as a building toy. And my daughter’s daycare has a bin full of Magnatiles that always seem to be in use.
In addition to teaching magnetic principles, magnetic toys can help kids learn cause and effect (e.g., what happens when two magnets are placed next to each other), spatial reasoning, and other skills.
Magnetic Match Rings are a straightforward toy that gives toddlers an independent way to interact with magnets while also learning their colors.
And like the Brightworks drill set, the Magnetic Match Rings set comes with pattern cards which challenge kids to replicate the designs using the rings.
As I already mentioned, Magformers are one of our favorite STEM toys for toddlers, or any age. As a parent, I like that Magformers come in various configurations depending on what colors you like, how many you need, and what items you want to create.
Though perhaps too early for toddlers, Magformers are a great way to begin understanding three-dimensional obects (such as cubes) and how they are constructed.
Math Toys
It is important for parents to help establish a solid math foundation for their kids; this includes basic skills like number sense, adding/subtracting, and, learning numbers through visual representation.
Luckily, there are a number of math toys that can help children learn these numerical skills.
Rainbow Counting Bears are an excellent example of a toy designed to meet multiple developmental objectives.
The cups and dice encourage toddlers to add and subtract (even if they are not consciously performing a calculation) bears.
Additionally, the continual moving and sorting of bears helps with their fine motor schools and hand-eye coordination. And the mixture of colors can be useful for younger children yet to master their colors..
Monkey Math is a fun interactive way to help children learn addition and subtraction
The objective is to balance bananas on both sides of the monkey. The game does a great ob of visually representing numbers to facilitate learning
Parents should note that the manufacturer recommends children be age 4 or older.
However, my experience is that some toddlers are already capable of understanding simple concepts. And even if they cannot grasp the adding/subtracting element, giving them exposure can only be helpful.
Gear Toys
Gears are important engineering tools: they can change the direction, torque, and speed of any power source.
Gear toys are excellent additions to a STEM collection. They can help toddlers learn spatial recognition, cause and effect, and problem solving.
I cannot speak for all children, but my daughter was–and sometimes still is–obsessed with refrigerator magnets.
Gearations refrigerator magnets leverage that seemingly natural disposition to play with items on the refrigerator into continual learning opportunities.
The Learning Resources Gears Gears Gears set is one of the most popular gear toys currently available.
Like Lego, Learning Resources has developed a system of play. That is, all of their gear sets are interchangeable and compatible with other sets.
Coding Toys
Programming is a valuable STEM skill; it helps you develop important cognitive skills like critical thinking and problem solving.
Coding toys for toddlers are designed to give children a playful way to become introduced to programming. They can be used to scaffold learning by helping introduce them to simple logic. And, they can even help your children learn logic and programming without even being near a screen!
Cubetto is a wooden robot that aims to introduce young kids to coding–all without the use of a device.
Primo Toys advertises the Cubetto for children as young as three. In practice, older toddlers can definitely enjoy Cubetto; however, they ill more than likely not grasp the coding aspects. For you as a parent, though, this means that your child can develop gradually and gain lots of repeat use from your investment in the kit.
If your child is a little older, or if you’re looking for a coding toy that may age better than the Code-a-Pillar, then you may consider Cubelets which operate using the same principles (individual pieces that accomplish specific things when connected together).
Building Blocks
Building blocks are the literal buildng blocks for toddlers’ development.
They offer many benefits, some of which are both directly connected (science: testing hypotheses; mathematics: measuring and counting) and indirectly (problem solving and creativity) connected to STEM.
Duplo is a classic building toy. And what more would you expect from Lego?
The iconic red rabbit symbolizes a building toy that is going to inspire your child’s creativity, while also helping young children learn basic building principles:
Just how high can one build a Duplo tower before it falls?
Tegu Blocks are high-quality magnetic building blocks that have been sustainably sourced from Honduras.
Those two facts (high-quality and sustainable) lead to the relatively high price tag for Tegu blocks.
However, they are a great learning tool, and their quality ensure they will last throughout your kids’ childhood (and probably through theirs’ as well).
Counting Toys
You can count on toy manufacturers to provide a variety of options for helping your children learn perhaps the most foundational STEM skill.
In addition to helping them become familiar with numbers through teaching phone numbers and explaining money, toys provide an independent, interactive, and fun way for your toddler to become mathematically literate.
Melissa and Doug’s Stack and Count Parking Garage is a well-designed toy.
It provides visual elements (painting numbers on the garage) to assist toddlers with learning their numbers.
On top of that, it utilizes a practical, everyday life object (parking garage) along with something (cars) that almost all kids enjoy playing with.
There are classic toys, and then there is the abacus, which may be the classic-est of them all.
The Melissa and Doug version is not anything fancy; however, it comes with Melissa and Doug’s history of making quality kids’ products