What Are Some Qualities You Seek In An Educational Toy For A Child That Is 2 To 6 Years Old?

When I buy toys, I’m look­ing for some­thing that can be used in mul­ti­ple ways by kids of dif­fer­ent abil­ity lev­els, and engages a child’s cre­ativ­ity. I’m wary of any­thing that claims to be “edu­ca­tional” just because it has let­ters and num­bers printed on it some­where. Any­thing that talks, ties in with a tv show, or oth­er­wise lim­its play options from the start, I absolutely refuse to buy. Any­thing that doesn’t lend itself for being used for mul­ti­ple pur­poses is not what I’m look­ing for. Sim­ple is good — I think blocks are really the ulti­mate learn­ing toy for lit­tle kids, though I have lots of other toys that are a lit­tle more sophis­ti­cated that I also think are good (Wedg­its, for exam­ple, or gear sets). No bat­ter­ies required (and no sound emit­ted) is good. Any­thing pur­port­ing to teach num­bers and the alpha­bet I meet with great sus­pi­cion (I’d say books — and con­ver­sa­tion — are the appro­pri­ate “toys” to teach that, though some­thing kind of abacus-like, or domi­nos, or some­thing, might have some value in teach­ing num­bers). Build­ing toys, cre­ative play toys, puz­zles, shape sorters, etc. strike me as the toys my kids are really learn­ing from.
If you’re really try­ing to design a “learn­ing” toy for chil­dren of a par­tic­u­lar age group, do a lit­tle child devel­op­ment research for that age before you start to see the skills kids are pick­ing up at those ages.
Oh yeah — and please no lead paint, chok­ing haz­ards, or other safety issues, espe­cially if 2-year-olds are in your age range.…

Sim­ple yet effec­tive. I want to be able to fig­ure it out.
Some­thing that’s FUN and doesn’t put an empha­sis on learn­ing but you really are.
Some­thing that teaches mul­ti­ple things.
I love toys that are more fun then ‘work.’ Some­times it’s just a pain in the rear. I swear my son learns more while he is play­ing then he does when I sit down to teach him. For example–he has a giraffe. You put the ball in the small hole work­ing on coor­di­na­tion. The balls have num­bers on it so I’ll say that’s ball num­ber one. It plays music [ABC song] which han­dles rhythm. Then the ball drops into one of four slots that are dif­fer­ent col­ors. We say “Ohh, it’s in the blue one.” It’s so much fun but it’s not appar­ent we are learn­ing. That’s the kind of toy we like.

No small pieces to choke on and no lead paint. Must stim­u­late the mind.