What *educational games* to play with toddlers?

mmm been a while since my kiddies were 18 months.

tearing old magazines apart was a hit. apparently that improves the muscle tone in there little hands.
if you have a peg board let them put in the pegs (under supervision in case a peg find its way to the mouth) and take it out again. this also improves there pincher grip.
at this age they also love push and pull toys. like a toy pram or a wheelbarrow where they can put toys in and drag it along.
let them crawl through a tunnel. you can make your own with tables and chairs and blankets. the more children get to crawl the better even if they are past the crawling stage
they enjoy "ring a rosie" especially if mommy and daddy do the "all fall down" part with them.
let them play in the sand and with water with buckets and spades.
let them do shape sorting

Marijke: Thanks for the brilliant link!

Currently my toddler's favourite past time is to play with a hose pipe in the garden, with the water opened only that it trickles onto the grass. Don't leave them unsupervised!

Thanks for all the new ideas ladies!!! And starting a binder or something is great idea.. I tend to do stuff and then completely forget about it!

Hello Kimika!

Join a library if you are near one - free/ cheap and their kiddies section has some really cool books. My son LOVES it when we sit together and read and point at pictures etc. We get books every week and he gets so excited to help choose/ read them. If I had to have bought all the books we've read we'd need a new house to store them in lol. If I see a theme he really likes e.g. dinosaurs, we look out for more books on that topic, because if they have an interest in it, they will learn more about it. If you can get kids to love books at a young age it will really benefit them through school and in life in general.

So many good suggestions made already. As mentioned already, they learn a LOT through play at this stage, so just playing with him can become educational. Any conversation you have with him can be educational - talk a lot, mention the colours of things, count things, go into detail.. tell him about the parts on the truck you are playing with, mention what trucks are used for, tell him where the TOP is and the BOTTOM, inside, outside, there is so much you can teach just by chatting to him. Ask him things, get him talking too, even if it is one word at at a time. Yes, a lot goes over his head but you will be amazed how much sinks in. Children are little sponges.. they absorb so much.

One favourite in our house at the moment is our revised version of I Spy. Instead of saying "somethign that begins with - then the letter" we describe the object and the rest of the family has to guess. I do basic things at first, like we will be in the kitchen and I'll say "something round, and orange and you can eat it" and he'll shout "orange" or they can point to it. He also now discribes things for us to guess. Your LO may be a bit small for this though, thought I'd mention anyway.

We play guessing game where you colect random little objects - hold under a towel one at a time and let little one feel and guess what the object is.

If you have the time, check out a couple of homeschooling blogs. Loads of moms have started blogs where they share not only homeschooling with their older kids but also what they call Totschool.

Start at this website and follow some of the blog links.
www.1plus1plus1equals1.com/TotSchool.html
I have a binder filled to the brim with ideas that I got from blogs

Pleasure ladies - must say these days I really struggle to do "educational" things with the boys and rather leave them to play and explore on their own, and will often go into a room or outside and find them totally absorbed with something, either building or taking something apart and trying to figure out how it works.

I have found that by me being to involved in their play actually stiffles their own imaginations - I tend to take over and not let them explore the objects (that's my excuse for being a lazy mom )