You want to buy educational toys for your child but you aren't sure how to match your child's learning style with toys that your child will enjoy. If you've bought toys before then you know how difficult it can be. What seems fun to you in the shop fails to engage your child and you feel annoyed - both at the money that you've wasted and the frustration of getting it wrong.

What you need to understand before you begin looking for learning toys is your child's particular learning style. Some children are aural, others visual learners, yet others lean towards more kinesthetic or hands on learning and others like logic based toys best.

Your little one learns aurally from the moment they are born. They can discern voices and sounds and music and eventually words and speech all aurally without any formal teaching. Did your child learn to speak early? If yes, then this is probably a good indication that this is a form of learning that they respond well to and will still enjoy. Learning toys that have a sound component will work well - ones that give instructions like speaking toys or audio cds.

If your child likes to learn through touch then toys that are practical and can be handled are going to work best. learning toys that fit this category include building blocks, interactive toys like lego, finger paints, play doh, water toys, craft activities.

Children are usually very enthusiastic about finding out about things through playthings that are visually appealing. Videos, DVDs and CDRom games all cater to your child's need for visual stimulation. To have maximum educational merit look out for those that encourage interactivity and don't just present entertainment to be consumed by your child without any active involvement. This interactivity may take the form of simple songs that have actions they can copy or they present concepts or simple experiments that can be replicated at home.

Others respond well to learning toys that have a logical pattern to them. Stacking blocks that vary in size allow them to explore things in a logical way, that is, if they want the blocks to stay stacked upright then they need to use the largest blocks on the bottom and the smallest on top.

Whatever your child's preferred educational style is, bear in mind that it can change so don't be too set in what you buy for them. Test different styles of toys every now and then to see if anything has changed but make sure you either don't spend too much on your test items.