You asked

Should I set up structured activities for my 2-year-old?

Playing helps develop your child in many different ways. Educational toys are great to use for structured playtimes. Toys that involve sorting according to sizes, shapes, or colours, or any combination of these, will teach your child about relative sizes, colour matching and naming and how to recognise different shapes.

Although it is fun to instruct your child on how to sort and play with educational toys properly, you need to give your child the opportunity to experiment and try things alone. Very often this involves doing something seemingly random with the different play objects, but the important thing is that your child is learning from the experience. Children learn more from activities and toys they find interesting, so you can use your child's level of enthusiasm as a guide to planning playtime activities.

You can also base playtime on specific activities or themes, depending on your child's interests. Finger painting, playing music with improvised percussion instruments, or collecting creepy crawlies in the garden are all fun and beneficial as activities for children.

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