By Liz McGowen

Is your toddler wasting time by playing online toddler games? Here are a few great skills - needed for kindergarten - that online toddler games can help teach your child.

Letter and number recognition

Many of the popular sites for online toddler games have activities with counting and simple spelling. Even recognizing and spelling your toddler's name is good for practice and recognition. These activities, combined with daily reinforcement of counting and singing the alphabet will have your toddler ready to go when it's time for preschool or kindergarten.

Shapes and colors

Online toddler games are often filled with bright colors and basic shapes. When playing these games with your child, be descriptive in your language as you play. "Let's click on the green triangle and see what happens" is much better than "Click here".

Hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills

Toddlers often struggle with developing the big movements of their arms and legs, sometimes called "large motor skills." It's also important for them to begin to develop "fine motor skills", the things they do with their fingers to put on doll clothes, hold crayons, use buttons, and play with things like Lego's. Playing an online toddler game that requires them to click or move the cursor also begins to develop these skills.

Sequencing

Discovering that one thing follows another is a skill that to adults seems obvious, but it's something a toddler needs to learn. If you want to get "C", but first you have to get "A" and "B", you'll follow this pattern. Sequencing is an important foundation for math, reasoning, and problem-solving.

Cooperation and limits

One of the biggest challenges of being a toddler is learning to cooperate with others. Computer time that is shared, and games that require cooperation, can be fun ways to learn how to play with others, how to share, how to ask for help, and how to handle frustration.

Keep these skills in mind the next time you are using an online toddler game, and encourage your toddler to develop these skills while playing. It's a wonderful, effortless way to incorporate learning into a fun activity.

Did you like this article? Author Liz McGowen is the mother of three who writes about parenting. For a list of her favorite sites for online toddler games visit her blog at http://www.healthnutmom.com/uncategorized/online-toddler-games-my-favorite-sites

Toddler Online Games
You can play toddler online games for free. Here is a list of some of the most recommended online toddler game websites.

Free Online Toddler Games
You might think that young children would not be interested in computers. However, once they have been introduced to free online toddler games, you will see quickly just how wrong you were. Children will pick up the skills to play these online games in no time, and will be begging you to let them have their daily computer time.

Toddler Online Computer Games
Development in science and technology has enthralled everyone, even toddlers. Traditional teaching tools and methods are passe or even prehistoric by the modern standards. If you ask a toddler to narrate the alphabet to you, don't get shocked if the child babbles out "A" for Apple Mac, "B" for bytes, "C" for computers.

Sesame Street Online Toddler Games
One of the most popular games they can play is the different Sesame Street online toddler games. They often end up liking these games more than others because they get to use the computer.

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