I've found myself inspired to make a few recommendations for products for my DS enjoys. I thought I'd start an official "journal" where I'll post an ongoing list of media popular with my son by age, such as book titles, iPad apps, music, and toys. (Several listings were recommended by helpful parents on this forum!)

AGE: 17 months favourites

Books
- The New Adventures of Curious George
- Birdsongs (Betsy Franco)
- The Trucker (Barbara Samuels)
- The Horse in Harry's Room (Syd Hoff)
- Dinosaur Dig (Penny Dale)
- Anything Dr. Seuss, especially "And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street" and "Dr. Seuss' ABC")
- Caps for Sale (Esphyr Slobodkina)
- A Sick Day for Amos McGee (Philip Stead)
- Kingfisher Amazing Vehicles
- Big and Small, Room for All (Jo Ellen Bogart)
- Zin Zin Zin, A Violin! (Lloyd Moss)
- Almost anything Robert Munsch, especially "Angela's Airplane", "Pigs", "50
Below Zero", and "Paperbag Princess"
- Click, Clack, Moo, Cows that Type (Cronin)
- Machines go to Work (William Low)
- Muncha! Muncha! Muncha! (Candace Flemming)
- Goodnight, Goodnight Comstruction Site (Sherry Rinker)
- The Bare Naked Book (Kathy Stinson)

IPad apps
-Goodnight Safari (Polk Street Press)
-Starfall ABC
-Bugs & Buttons
-Bugs & Numbers
-Peekaboo animals

Toys/games
- Playmobil fire engine (#4821)
- Brainquest (ages 2-3 and 3-4)
- Hot wheels matchbox cars
- Viking toys mini chubby vehicles
- CAT 8" tough trucks (dump truck, excavator, and front loader)
- Beleduc puzzles (world map, 5-layer anatomy)
- Misc. stuffed animals
- Plan Toys blocks

AGE: 18-19 months (favourite *new* media only)

Books:
- Henry & Mudge series
- Dr Putter & Tabby series-- the shorter stories
- The original Curious George stories
- Let's Read and Find Out Science books (level 1)
- A Dark Dark Tale
- If You Give a Mouse a Cookie
- Marsupial Sue
- Pete the Cat and his Four Groovy Buttons
- At a Construction Site
- I Drive a Garbage Truck
- Danny and the Dinosaur
- Books by Aliki (Feelings, Digging up Dinosaurs)
- Penny Dale books -- Dinosaur Dig and Dinosaur Zoom
- Pooh's Thinking Corner books from Dollarama

Video/YouTube:
- PBS Kids Pteranodon Family World Tour
- Between the Lions
- Winnie the Pooh original episodes
- Select Pink Panther cartoons on YouTube
- Anything remotely connected to garbage trucks
- This video spawned an interest in food webs:
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=hecXupPpE9o&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DhecXupPpE9o

Ipad apps:
- Starfall Learn to Read (~$3-4)

Toys:
- Duplo
- Lego City garbage truck
- A bag of polished rocks
- Green Toys recycling truck and home-made recycling bins/mini garbage
- Anything that can be played with in a sandbox
- A home-made 3D city made of paper that can be designed into subdivisions
- All our old construction vehicles and tools
- A tea set and medieval castle at the museum

Audio:
- Two Little Sounds (Hap Palmer)
- A children's cello compendium (I'll dig up the title)
- Henry Mancini
- Big band swing

2 yrs. 9 mos.
Reading Eggs (learn to read website)
Golden Books (favorite- Farmer Jones Animals)
Peter Weatherall (on Youtube)
Daniel Tigers Neighborhood (PBS), strawberry shortcake, carebears
Whiteboard & Markers
Wet on Wet painting watercolor from tubes
acrylics & cheap canvasses
Candyland board game
Magnetic Mighty Mind
jumping on the bed,
playing in the mud,
weeding the garden,
keeping a ladybug in a cage.
dolls, kitchen set, cars, hackeysac
kumon tracing, then kumon letter games workbook
stirring eggs, oil, and water for brownie mixes

Update -- AGE: 20 months (new media only)

Books:
- Anything William Steig (especially "Pete's a Pizza" and "Dr. de Soto Goes to Africa")
- Anything Robert Munsch
- Mouse Makes Words

Video:
- DARPA robotics and android technology
- DVD with music for the story "Zin, Zin, Zin A Violin"

IPad/computer media:
- Starfall all-access website

Toys:
- Tempera paints
- Water colour mixing with food colouring
- Play Doh

Audio:
- Rockabye Baby compilations of rock music on xylophone (EG Foo Fighters, Tool)

Thanks for the Bugs And Numbers/Buttons rec.

You're welcome.

Just coming back to say REALLY thank you for Bugs and Numbers! Miss 3yrs is in love. My kids aren't super mathy and it's exactly at her level at 3.5yrs. She can already do a lot of things but not all the way through most games so it's probably not going to last that long but it's enthralling right now.

Oh, I'm so glad! The original recommendation came from another Davidson poster. I love this place.

Update: AGE 21mos (new media only)

Books:

- An oldie but a recent favourite is Dr. Seuss' "Fox in Socks"
- Tony Mitton books, including "Ocean Odyssey"
- Musical Max
- Jazz Baby
- Philemon Sturges' version of the Little Red Hen
- Anything by Syd Hoff (Sammy the Seal, Albert the Albatross)
- Anything by Mo Willems (especially "Let's Go for a Drive", "Should I Share my Ice Cream", and "Watch me Throw this Ball"). He finds these hilarious.

Other media:

- This play dough recipe in every rainbow colour: http://musingssahm.com/2012/02/easy-homemade-playdough-recipe
--> Note 1: We bought several different cookie cutters from Bulk Barn, and I let DS cut the dough with a standard flatware knife
--> Note 2: Use pastry/00 flour and add 1 Tbsp of glycerin for a terrifically malleable, moist dough

- Gardening (independently): weeding, turning soil, watering plants. We live in the city, and I'm seriously considering volunteering our time at a community garden.

Great resources above.

Just wanted to add Here Comes Science DVD by They Might Be Giants (warning, you should skip it if your family disapproves of evolution discussions) and Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood on PBS and Netflix.

Daniel Tiger has really been wonderful for helping my son deal with emotional growth, learning social skills, and even potty training. It is just a sweet natured show that my son really responds to well. I found he has been responding even more to it at he gets closer to 3.

Those look like lovely resources. Thanks SAHM! I'll be sure to look into both.

Update: Age 22 months (new media)

Books:
- I Can Tell by Touching
- The Gruffalo's Child
- One Cool Friend
- Run, Turkey, Run!
- Fire, Fire (Gail Gibbons) -- a detailed description of fire fighting procedures in a variety of locations (city, country, park, offshore)
- I See Myself
- Baby Brains
- Golden Books-- Saggy Baggy Elephant, Scuffy the Tugboat, Chipmunk's ABC, The Bunny Book, Goodnight Little Bear
- How Many Teeth?
- My Noisy Body
- Bear Snores On -- a sweet fictional story that introduces the concept of hibernation
- Pete the Cat: Pete's Big Lunch
- Stone Soup
- Bats in the Library
- ETA: The "I Wonder Why" series by Kingfisher

Toys:
- Duplo and Mega Bloks-- the favorites this month.
We play with these for about 3 hours every day lately. DS has an easier time building independently with Mega Bloks but enjoys making his own new "toys" out of both sets of blocks. We need at least another set of each to make the more ambitious projects that he wants to build.
- ETA: City Blocks (set of 200 uniform wood blocks). I bought these at a consignment shop and they're terrific for making complex structures. DS is on a real construction kick.

Electronic media:
- Nothing new. We were watching too many videos (~1-1.5 hours/day), so I've cut him back here.
- His enjoyment of the controlled Starfall readers was heightened when I loaded the browser "Rover" onto the iPad. Rover is flash enabled, which allows us to access the full Starfall suite in a touchpad format.

At that age my son really liked a book called Just One More Swim. It is about a polar bear teaching her cubs to swim. The unabridged version is much better than the abridged version.

Off Go Their Engines, Off Go Their Lights is a nice vehicle bedtime book for younger kids. Fewer words than Good Night Good Night Construction Site but similar idea.

For kids very comfortable with the food chain, One Small Place by the Sea and One Small Place in a Tree are nice.

Kids who like Magnetic Mighty Minds may also like Block Buddies.

Oh, if you have a vehicle loving child, Hop Aboard! is the best Richard Scarry book I have seen. It doesn't really have much in the way of stories, just page after page of detailed drawings of vehicles with a short sentence about a boy and his dog Flip... My son can spend a long time just staring at the pages.

Shortly after age 2, the Pop Up Space Facts and Pop Up Dinosaur Facts books from Barnes and Noble became winners here. They are pretty fragile but he still pulls them out about once a week close to a year later. Around 2.5 we were reading them repeatedly for hours daily. These books are meaty and I think targeted for 8 year olds but if you have a kid who loves the subject matter and pop up books, it is worth considering.

Aquinas I could never get Reading Eggs working properly on Rover. I never bothered trying anything else after that assumed anything with mouse over contet would fail. Starfall works? Also, we now have the Starfall app that has all (or much of) the original free contet.

SAHM, I love those suggestions. I just bought a Robert Sabuda dinosaur pop-up encyclopedia for DS' 2nd birthday, which is coming up in short order. We're definitely on the same wavelength! As always, your thoughtful suggestions are greatly appreciated!

More generally, I've been doing some Christmas and birthday shopping and will be excited to review DS' response to some of the new equipment, which includes:

- A balance and calibrated weight set
- A scale
- Baby soda test tubes and plastic beakers
- A prism
- A magnetic wand
- A 10x tripod magnifier
- Expanding water beads
- The sequel to the book "Mouse makes Words", I believe called "Mouse's hidden words"
- An easel
- A tool work bench

Yup, we've managed to run the entire Starfall subscription on the iPad. I bit the bullet and spent the $35 for full access, which was a good decision. DS adores Starfall and asks for it several times each day. He derives considerably more independence and enjoyment from being able to use a touch interface.

There's a nice section under the "Learn to Read" books (also in an app) that has full-in-the-blank spaces to form words. That's a favourite game. Funnily, he still can't always drag and drop a letter across the screen, so he'll instruct me on what to do. Mum is a glorified computer mouse!

It might be that an old bug was fixed in Rover...who knows?

if you don't mind me asking, what is your daily routine with your little one? what activities do you do on a daily basis?

thanks for the rover tip - we have a subscription to starfall - DS3 used it all the time (it's really too easy for the most part now, even though he still enjoys playing around on some of the songs, etc). we first got it when he was a little before 2 and it was a great buy. i wish i had known about rover back then!

i do wish starfall went beyond 1st grade stuff - i love the setup. either way, i will definitely show DS3months when he is old enough to be interested in it

random pseudo-related question...does anyone know of kids foreign language websites, akin to starfall? DS would LOVE a french site - he speaks some french, esp. numbers (his nana is fluent) and i think a starfall-esque french site (or any languages, really) would be a bit hit over here.

These look great! We want to play at your house. :-)

A couple things to think about adding over the next year if you don't have them in your list of toys yet... A simple sewing measuring tape and a digital watch.

My son loves to measure anything... The measuring tape is small and packs well. He also loves our tape measure from my husband's toolbox but I prefer the little fabric one.

He picked up telling time on a digital clock at some point this year from the clocks around the house and me telling him that we were going somewhere at a certain time or leaving in 5 minutes etc. He loves wearing a watch and it has headed off some tantrums to let him tell me what time it is and how much time we have left.

And maps... My son loves the world map. This one grew out of his love for the solar system and earth.

DS 2.5 years
Shows:
Word World on hulu plus (which has no commercials for the kids shows
Wonderpets
Little Bill

Books
A Children's Dictionary (this one is hard for me to get into, haha, oh the boredom).
The Skeleton Inside Me
My Amazing Body

Apps
Starfall
iStory
SuperWhy (from PBS show)

We used to read The Gruffalo and watch the movie and compare them. We would recite the story, make puppets, basically exploring the entire story. Such a great book/movie!

I wish youtube would moderate commercials (rated R movie trailers before kid's videos?!!! So frustrating!), otherwise, we'd watch a lot more short videos on new topics of interest.

There is a website called commonsensemedia.org that reviews media for age appropriateness.

Thanks for sharing all of these suggestions!

DS3 loves books more than toys, so we have quite a growing collection. I am attracted to books with beautiful / unusual illustrations because it keeps me from getting bored.

Here's my list of faves from when DS was about 2-2.5:

-Anything by Jim Arnosky (Every Autumn Comes the Bear, Rabbits and Raindrops, Otters Under Water, etc)
-The Cat at Night, and Hardscrapple Harvest by Dahlov Ipcar
-Margaret Wise Brown is a solid Author, we've liked: Home for a Bunny, The Golden Egg Book, Sneakers the Seaside Cat
-It's Winter, It's Spring, and It's Fall by Linda Glaser
-The Mitten (the version by Alvin Tresselt is the very best)
-Kitten's First Full Moon and Old Bear by Kevin Henkes
-Red are the Apples by Marc Harshman
-We're Going on a Bear Hunt by Micheal Rosen
-Roadwork by Sally Sutton
-A Book of Sleep by Il Sung Na
-A Penguin Story by Antoinette Portis
-A Tree is Nice by Janice May Udry
-Five Little Monkeys Wash the Car by Eileen Christelow
-The Wind Blew, and Goodnight Owl by Pat Hutchins
-The Giant Jam Sandwich by John Vernon Lord
-Corderoy by Don Freeman
-Feather's for Lunch by Lois Ehlert
-Harry the Dirty Dog by Gene Zion
-Turtle Splash by Cathryn Farwell
-My Heart is like a Zoo by Micheal Hall
-Inch by Inch by Leo Lionni
-My Many Colored Days by Dr. Suess

Here are some more advanced books we've added since DS was about 2.5:
-Mike Mulligan and More: 4 Classic Stories by Virginia Lee Burton
-Septimus Bean by Janet Quin-Karkin
-Too Many Pumpkins by Linda White
-The Runaway Pumpkin by Kevin Lewis
-Make Way for Ducklings, Blueberries for Sal, Lentil, and One Morning in Maine by Robert McCloskey
-Where Do They Go When it Rains by Gerda Muller
-Jack's Garden by Henry Cole
-Paddington by Michael Bond
-Charlie the Ranch Dog by Ree Drummond
-Frog and Toad are Friends by Arnold Lobel
-When I was Young in the Mountains by Cynthia Rylant (I skip the page with the dead snake :D)
-Papa Piccolo by Carol Talley
-The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge by Hildegarde Swift (DS loves the youtube video about the real little red lighthouse up in NYC)
-The Tomten by Astrid Lindgren (This book is a little out there for some people... If you buy this, it is imperative that you get an import copy, as the US printings are low quality. Mine is a used Hardcover, Import, January 1, 1992 from Amazon.)
-Owl Moon by Jane Yolen

Thanks GGG and Space_Cadet for your additions!

It's amazing how many of your favourite titles are on our bookshelf now for DS2, Space_Cadet. Good children's literature really is universal in its appeal.

Cool! We've really liked your suggestions for "Zin, Zin, Zin a Violin" and "A Dark Dark Tale". And we're going to pick up "Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site" for DS1.5 for Christmas. Despite the fact that we are swimming in books, I always look forward to a new one!

You know, I often give books as birthday presents and I have gotten the distinct impression that this is puzzling to many parents. Like, they already have a book or two for bedtime, so why would they need any more books? This is so foreign to me... I mean, I realize that most 2 year olds do not like books marked for K-1st graders. But I just assumed that, whatever their comprehension level, most kids liked to be read to throughout the day.

Oh, I'm so glad the list has been helpful! I am a self-avowed children's literature addict, so I'm always delighted to find like-minded parents.

ITA your disconnect with other parents. We get some strange looks from other parents when we bring a grocery shopping cart to the library to pick up dozens of new books every week. My thinking is: why not? My son gets so excited to read new books and seems to treasure each one. Books are such a wonderful portal to other places, people, cultures, ideas...

I see I'm due for an update on this thread!

LOL, aquinas. We bring a big blue tote. (We call is our "big blue bag of books") That thing gets heavy!

I'll bet, Marnie! I've relied on wheels for ages.

I'm quite a sight: wiggly 2-year-old strapped to me in a carrier, 40-liter grocery cart full of borrowed books in tow, sunglasses usually falling off face, wallet spilling coins and cards everywhere. Oh dear.

That's such a funny image.

Sadly, our library is rubbish. I usually end up buying books online... And hoping that I've done enough research to avoid buying a clunker. So, yeah, keep those recommendations coming!

Ha! Me too! Carrier and all! Toddler Tula at that age, preschool Kinderpack sometimes now. The Kinderpack is a big help in a crowded museum with displays at adult level.

Another thing I would add to the list is a good map. DS has loved his large wall map of the world and his globe beach ball since he was 2. We still look at them daily. He recently got a puzzle of the United States where the pieces are shaped like the states. It is a big hit too, but he would have mangled the small cardboard pieces or been frustrated that the states don't snap together six months ago .

That is really unfortunate yet great at the same time. You'll end up building a beautiful library for your child(ren). DD rarely reads the same book twice these days so we have stopped paying retail for books and pick up used books for 25 cents to a dollar so we have an eclectic library that is not really very reflective of DD's taste. So the books we buy online for her are the rare "chosen" ones that DD wants to borrow from the library over and over again. Here are some in our new book collection:

What Really Happened to Humpty Dumpty

- It's a clever book and if your DC is a fan of Mother Goose rhymes, it's a must have.

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore

- DD adores the short film and the book equally. It could just be that she loves Humpty Dumpty but it's a beautiful story and perfect for those of us who love books.

Pluto's Secret: An Icy World's Tale of Discovery

- This was recommended on this board and it has become a favorite.

The Day the Crayons Quit

- I don't get this book and don't understand why it's so popular but DD has read it over and over.

Rocket Writes a Story

- It goes through the process of writing in a very authentic way. I love the end and DD was much more interested in this book than in How Rocket Learned to Read.

Ben's Trumpet

- One of DD's earliest favorites. Walmart has it listed for $4.42 including a CD.

24m to 36m was the peak period for jigsaw puzzles for DD. These days, she is back to doing art, practicing handwriting, crafting, dancing, practicing music, and generally having fun being her crazy self.

Hi Marnie. I missed your question on my previous reading of this thread. Anyway, we've really enjoyed the Gus on the Go app. We've done French, but it's available in a lot of languages. It focuses on building vocabulary, not reading, so it's not exactly like starfall.

Random comment to be followed by a more thorough update shortly. We invented a fun game of guess-the-object. Choose half a dozen objects, put the. In a pillowcase, and have your child figure out what's inside by touch only. DS is crazy about this.

Thanks SC - Will definitely check that out!

We discovered some really cool apps over the last few days, one in particular called "Pettson's Inventions". If your kid likes to figure out how things work, has a mechanical/physics sort of brain...this is a great app. I'm not sure the intended age range, but basically it's a series of puzzles whose solutions require building Rube Goldberg devices. It gives sort of a very basic introduction to the way pulleys, levers, springs, etc. work, in a very playful way. The "inventions" have a sort of strange logic to them that appeals to DS, and I like that you don't use every part that's available, so it's not just a matching problem. Anyway, he loves it so far.

My daughter is three and she's been playing Starfall.com for about 6-8 months now. She has her own little laptop and everything. She LOVES it and she has learned a lot from it. There is a lot of free stuff but even a year's subscription is only 30 something dollars. I tried ABC mouse and found it too repetitive. Starfall is much better and much cheaper.

Update: Age 28 months (new media)

Books:
- Elliott Moose (Andrea Beck)
- Jane Hissey's books (Old Bear, Hoot, Ruff, Jolly Tall, Little Bear's Trousers, Little Bear Lost, Splash!, Old Bear's Surprise Painting)
- My Visit to the Aquarium (Aliki)
- Frog and Toad books (Lobel)
- Henry and Mudge books (Rylant)
- Mr. Putter and Tabby books (Rylant)
- Anything Leo Lionni (Alexander and the Wind Up Mouse, Swimmy, Fish is Fish, Little Blue and Little Yellow)
- More complex Dr. Seuss books (Horton Hears a Who!, The Lorax, How The Grinch Stole Christmas, The Sleep Book)
- Vicky Cobb science books (I Face the Wind, I see Myself)
- Rainbow's End books (by John Patience)-- New Friends, Toby Claypot's Wishing Well, That Mouse Must Go, The Winter Warming --charming books from my childhood about a village of little gnomes
- The Cat in the Hat Learning Library (Inside Your Outside, Hark! A Shark!, Oh Say Can You Seed, Miles and Miles of Reptiles, Is a Camel a Mammal?)
- Paleofiction like "Pterosaur Trouble" and "Ankylosaur Attack" by Daneil Loxton. These are fictional stories about a day in the life of a few dinosasurs/pterosaurs. I highly recommend these for children who love dinosaurs.
- The Slinky Malinki series (by Lynley Dodd)-- quasi mysterious stories about the high jinks of a cat and his friends.
- The Toby series by William Steig (Toby, Where are You?, Toby, What are You?)

Toys:
- Lego
- Magnet wands
- Magnifying glass
- Puzzles (especially Crocodile Creek floor puzzles- they're gorgeous! http://www.ebay.com/itm/2008-Crocod...imal-36-Piece-Floor-Puzzle-/191065438255)
- Bruder trucks (e.g. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bruder-02660-Actros-Garbage-Orange/dp/B00007B8O9)
- A cheap plastic tea set for the bath

Other print media:
- The magazine "High Five" by Highlights. DS especially loves the hidden picture puzzles. My parents bought a gift subscription for DS. He loves the magazine so much that I decided to buy back-dated used copies of the magazine going back 3 years. I'm going to hide a copy in the mailbox each week so it feels like we're getting a more frequent subscription.
- Here is a link to some free online hidden pictures puzzles: http://www.highlightskids.com/hidden-pictures/interactive/archive
- Brain quest puzzle decks (FYI: these are easy; age 4-5 or 5-6 seems about right for a 2 year old)


Electronic media:
- App: My First Hidden Pictures (Highlights)
- TV shows: "Dinosaur Train" and "Mighty Machines". He also likes watching model truck reviews on the YouTube channel "Cranes etc". The narrator is a wry British man who makes some biting remarks about manufacturers' products, which DS seems to love.
- He still likes Starfall, though we only play it once every week or two, whereas we do a few hidden picture puzzles every day on request!

29 MONTHS

TOYS:

1. Just bought DS2.25 a Quadrilla marble run. Easily one of the best presents we've bought him-- he played with it for 3 hours straight after it arrived, only to be separated from it for bed.

I bought this model for more than half off retail used: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B000FJTP1G?pc_redir=1396078796&robot_redir=1

Highly recommended.

2. Rock Band -- play drums on practice mode. A favourite!

BOOKS:

- Anything by Jon Agee (thank you, Mana, for the recommendation!)
- Your Fantastic Elastic Brain
- Octopuses are Amazing
- Gravity is a Mystery
- Slinky Malinki
- Hairy maclary

Love your lists Aquinas!

If you don't have one already and do have access to an open area like a soccer field or rugby pitch, I recommend getting a Stomp Rocket. We bought one around that age and it is still a huge hit a year later. It is a light Styrofoam rocket that is launched when a child or adult jumps on a plastic container, forcing air through a tube to propel the rocket high in the air. We didn't get Stomp Rocket Jr, just the regular one for about ten dollars on Amazon. It would be a real challenge to cause injury with this, so the junior version is unnecessary. Anyhow my son loves to discuss thrust, trajectory, angles, etc and the rocket has been fantastic for his space loving pretend play

Thought I would pass it along because he has enjoyed it so much.

It is neat to see other kids who love the same classics as ours do.

For DS 3.5, we have loved:
The Dark by Jon Klassen and Lemony Snicket - we love this book! Really great book about a child and overcoming fear of dark
All books by Jon Klassen
Stuck by Oliver Jeffers
The Lump of Coal by Lemony Snicket (i have no idea why he liked this one)
The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins by Barbara Kerley (this came just at the perfect time, when a classmate of DS smashed his tower that he spent so much time building and DH and I learned about this amazing man)
The entire 42 books of the original Thomas railway series (we started reading those when he was 2 and he just loves them still)
The Big Orange Splot by Manus Pinkwater
The Legend of Indian Paintbrush by Tommie DePaola (this popped up again recently because it is spring now)
Alice in Wonderland (not sure why DH picked it up but he enjoyed listening I guess since I hear random references to it)
Mr Popper's Penguins

Toys
Magna Tiles (even our 19 month old loves those)
Currently playing with a new set of snap circuits
Oddly it is our 19 month old who loves legos while he has always been eh about them
Balance bike
Kite

TV
We don't watch much although he does love Dinosaur Train and whenever he wants to know a how to, DH usually pulls something up from youtube

So glad you like it, SAHM! I'm definitely going to look into the rocket. I could imagine my son being thrilled by launching it at the park. He wears sunglasses all the time outside anyway, so chance of injury is even lower!

Thanks for your list, notnafnaf!

I'm sorry this got lost in the thread. JazzBluesy, if you're still here, it's something like this at 2.5:

Wake
Eat (or not eat) breakfast
Free play--park, reading, trains, blocks, cooking, tools, other toys, etc. with me
Bath

Once a week DS has a group music class. We'll also have a play date with his friend, run errands, go to a museum or the library.

Lunch (or not eating)
Nap
Library/read/free play/park/watch a show with me

Cooking together and dinner
Goof with Daddy
Reading as a family/making up silly games/play fighting
Bed

So, basically a free flowing day of random play, reading, friends, and some excursions, with meals and sleep thrown in...somewhere!

Update: Age 2.5

Just wanted to share a nice set of science books that DS has been enjoying: Earlybird Start-Up Science 1-4. These are the recommended science curriculum for grades 1-2 from Singapore Science, but the material is simple enough to be accessible to a toddler or preschooler interested in science as a game. I was looking for a playful, storybook-like accompaniment to complement some of the topics we read about in our library books. I originally bought them because I was curious what material was covered in grades 1-2, but then decided they'd be wasted if I didn't use them now!

The books contain about 30 1-page "lessons" each, with full colour illustrations. Today, we played a game classifying living and non-living things and sorting animals (bird, mammal, fish) as an extension of a book we were reading. It took about 3 minutes for each page, and DS had fun playing along. We did the second "lesson" at his urging.

The early books have a good balance between life and earth science and run about $5 each. They are in a workbook format, but you can easily convert the activities to oral ones without losing the fun of the tasks (and resell them!) They don't contain any experiments, but there are enough good sources (I particularly like Vicki Cobb's Science Play books) that I don't worry about that, especially at this age where everything is supposed to be about play!

These are awesome ideas! Thanks for the app recommendations. The bugs and numbers game and inventions game were HUGE hits. I never buy apps for my I pad but my son played the first inventions game so many times after he beat it that after a few months I decided to get the second one and Felix version. After he played this he developed a big interest in gears and the way things work.

Some activities my son enjoyed starting at 3.5 were:
-Lego(he played more with it after I got the big base for it to attach pieces to)
-playdohgh( I add in plastic eyes, string, buttons, Popsicle sticks or whatever I have to make crazy alien creatures)
- play Mobil camping set
- painting the wall with water outside
-putting animal stickers on paper and adding (with markers) to the paper around stickers: cookies that the animals are eating or water that they are sitting in or a tree for them to climb. This activity can go on for so long because the ideas are endless.
-window markers!

Other apps:
Elmo abc
Elmo 123
Bugs and buttons
Reader rabbit
My amazing body
Cat in the hat books

Shows:
magic school bus
Leap frog number factory
Busy town


Books:
To be continued when I have more time:)

He just turned 4 and, Currently he is into the scooby doo mystery books that don't have stuff thus too scary but I want to come up with a list of great ones we have enjoyed up to this point. Thank again for ideas everyone!

Thanks for the new suggestions, Flapperfeet! Glad some of the ideas have been hits. I missed Marnie's post with the inventions app and just downloaded it now. It's exactly the sort of thing DS adores.

We have been LOVING kinetic sand. It is sand with a polymer mixed in, like silly putty. So it acts like sand that is wet or play dough that never dries out. We put it in a big plastic bin and drive little toy trucks around or build sand castles. It's an awesome sensory activity!

What brand do you use, Space_Cadet? I've tried a few locally and they have been hit and miss in terms of malleability.

Hi Aquinas. We picked up some Waba Fun kinetic sand from Amazon. Ours is nice and malleable.

DS 24 months is loving these apps/games right now:

--Wallykazam app (letter recognition)
--Monkey Preschool Lunchbox app
--Smatch game (memory game but a bit more challenging...you have to match based on numbers, shape or color)
--Roll and Play (he still really loves this one!)