As we have seen from the earlier articles in this series, children of two years old are already making sense of the complex world around them. Led by their natural curiosity, they have moved on from the gathering of sensory impressions to more elaborate investigations - finding out not just what things are, but what they do. They have also begun to recognise that things belong to groups or categories, and have started to reinforce this realisation by playing simple sorting games. These basically scientific activities - experimentation and classification - are pursued with gusto throughout the pre-school years. Indeed, once children learn to circumvent the discovery process by asking questions, their hunger for knowledge can begin to drive adults mad.
The leap into language that makes the questions possible usually comes during the second half of the third year. Of course, children have been limbering up as linguists since birth - listening, babbling, blurting out the odd word - but suddenly this process seems to speed up. Their active vocabulary increases, they start putting together two-word sentences, and next thing you know, they're following you around demanding enlightenment.
The acquisition of language, and the mastery of symbolic thought that makes it possible, is also responsible for the child's increasing powers of imagination. Children start to copy the actions of those around them quite early, but by the end of their third year, they have usually moved on from imitation to identification. Once this happens, they are not just copying the bus driver or the shop lady, they are 'being' those characters. Instead of imitating isolated actions, they are putting their observations together and thinking up stories they can act out. At first, their simple role playing needs frequent encouragement from adults, but soon they become more and more absorbed in their own worlds. This is the beginning of creativity. Once the imagination comes into play, it's no longer enough for children to find out how things work. Now, they have to find out how things can be used to serve their own personal visions. The mini scientist has become the embryonic artist.
In the world of the imagination, objects take on new meanings. Now they are important mainly as props. The real object recedes, and is replaced by the transformed version the child sees in his head. Deep in his bus-driver game, he has lost interest in the colour, the texture and the throwability of a pan lid. For the moment, all that concerns him is its suitability as a steering wheel. Old toys are still valued, but for different reasons. New toys that are most successful are those which take account of these developments.
Contrary to what some people seem to think, complicated puzzles or construction kits are not appropriate for most three-year-olds. Everyone has heard of the precocious tot who, at two-and-a-half, can build scale models of the Lloyds building out of Meccano, but such prodigies of logic and spatial awareness are extremely rare.
The most intellectually appropriate toys for the rising-threes are those which make good props or personages for role-play games, stimulate their burgeoning interest in making things, or promote language development. The best kind of jigsaw is the one with a few, easy-fit pieces, but lots of attractive pictorial detail to discuss. The best kind of construction kit is the sort that's made up of simple basic building components combined with lots of compatible small-world accessories. The makers of Lego clearly understood this when they developed their Duplo and Primo ranges for this age group.