Off the back off the thread regarding mollycoddled primary children, it would be interesting to hear what little skills you're trying to develop with your almost-2yo.
At the moment with DS we are encouraging:
Colour recognition
Numbers 1-5
Singing nursery rhymes
Spacial awareness/safety (he likes to run full tilt looking sideways 🙄)
Using cutlery
Sitting nicely at the table
Verbal development-extending vocab and putting words together to form basic sentences
Social interaction-sharing, being gentle etc
Basics of self care-washing own face with cloth, tooth brushing, taking socks off/pulling trousers up
He also likes to 'help' with chores eg getting the washing out of the machine and into the basket, gets his hoover out when I'm pushing the big one around etc
All of this is done through games/play/general chat through the day, none of it is forced or pushed on him. Once he's mastered one thing we consider what the natural next step is and just encourage him to have a go.