* Materials they can influence and change, with different textures and properties to experience and experiment with: sand, water, dough, clay, mud, finger paints
* Simple equipment to accompany the above: sand pits and paddling pools; buckets, strong plastic spades and rakes, easily operated sand and water mills, funnels, floating ducks or boats; sand-proof mini vehicles; rolling pins, dough cutters, embossed toys to leave a print.
* Real domestic items that they can pretend with safely: brushes, pans, shopping baskets, handbags and purses, adult hats and clothes; realistic but safe toy versions of more delicate or dangerous items - toy cameras, telephones, cutlery, crockery, kitchen appliances and so on.
* Pull-along toys, especially those with added features such as swivelling eyes or flapping ears. Most children have learned to walk backwards pulling a toy by the age of two.
* Toys that involve fitting one shape into another - simple play trays; peg people that fit into holes; shape sorters; nesting containers - boxes, beakers or hollow dolls. These toys teach children about congruity of shapes and relative sizes.
* Books with more detail in the illustrations. By 18 months, children will be able to recognise, point to, and even name familiar objects and characters in the pictures. They'll also be able to manage books with conventional paper pages, though they tend to turn over several pages at once.
* Modular bricks for first efforts at building - at least 60 in a set. Buy too few now and it may be hard to find extra bricks with the same basic module later.
* Dolls, soft toys and small-world toys. Glove puppet characters to be animated by adults - it's been shown that puppets can often 'get through' to children where carers have failed.
* Stable, sturdy rockers, and ride-ons that can be propelled by the child's feet on the floor.
* Low climbing apparatus, preferably incorporating slides, steps, short tunnels and 'dens' - on mats indoors, on grass outdoors.
* Things that roll - balls and small wheeled vehicles.
* A sturdy toy cassette player for playing nursery rhymes and music to dance to.
