Toys for Early Childhood Development
It’s said that a child learns more in their first year than they will throughout the rest of their lifetime. Very early in our lives, we discover the act of play. Playing continues throughout our entire lives. As adults, we may play chess or sports, we may enjoy computer games, or we may simply bounce a balled up piece of paper into the trashcan now and then. Playing is important regardless of your age, but it is most important in early childhood.
The vital importance of playing and toys came to prominence in the psychological community thanks largely to the book Homo Ludens, or Man the Player, written by Johan Huizinga, a Dutch cultural theorist. Huizinga argued that playing is not merely for children, or “just for fun”, but the basic starting point for all personal development.
Huizinga’s book succinctly sums this whole approach to playing with a single sentence: “Let my playing be my learning, and my learning be my playing.” In other words, play serves as a form of practice and training, a way to exercise our body and mind without the actual stakes involved in “real life”.
An obvious example of play used in training would be flight school. A virtual flight simulator used to prepare pilots is, by definition, a video game, but it serves an important function in a pilot’s learning process in that the trainee is free to experiment and test the boundaries of his aircraft without actually putting his own safety at risk. When he’s finally put into the cockpit of the real airplane, he knows exactly what it can do the first time he takes the captain’s seat.
Safety concerns with certain age groups
Toys come with a recommended age range for a few reasons. First of all, it has a lot to do with development levels. If a book is recommended for a twelve year old or older, that doesn’t mean that your eight year old can’t handle it, just that most eight year olds cannot. If your kid has already graduated from Doctor Seuss and Golden Books, they might be ready for the real literary experience waiting for them in the pages of Lord of the Flies or Winnie the Pooh.
Another reason for the age range is, of course, safety. Safety has more to do with physical development than mental or emotional development. The Haynes Internal Combustion engine is great for a kid who has grown strong enough to handle simple tools and carry slightly heavy parts. It’s recommended for kids aged eight to sixteen for reasons of both physical and mental development. A six year old would probably find it a bit cumbersome to put together when the engine block itself ways almost as much as they do.
If your six year old is the size of an eight year old, though, then you don’t have that to worry about. Safety issues are different from child to child just as mental development is different from child to child.
Under six years or so, though, you should probably be willing to treat these safety concerns as the gospel. Choking hazards are a very real threat, as are pointy, heavy, and delicate objects.
Encouraging your musical prodigy
You may already be tired of singing along to the tune of “Toot toot, chugga chugga, big red car!” but you have to admit that The Wiggles are onto something here. They really are one of the best things to come along in kid’s entertainment in quite some time.
More than simply a colourful little show to keep kids distracted in front of the TV for a little while, The Wiggles are doing a great job at inspiring a whole generation of young people to take a real interest in music. This is accomplished with songs that are easy to memorize, easy to sing along with, and if your kid picks up a guitar, not all that tough to play.
With either a simple guitar, a drum kit, or a keyboard, you can help to encourage what may wind up becoming a true passion for your child throughout their life. There are a lot of great educational toys for aspiring musicians out there.
Now, we have a little bit of advice on this front… Guitar lessons can be helpful, but the trick about the guitar is that it’s really not all that difficult to come up with something enjoyable by just fiddling around with the strings until you figure something out. Before you spend any money on lessons, watch how your kid plays around with his new instrument. Look up some instructions online for playing simple songs on the guitar. If your kid can get the hang of that, then they may be ready for lessons.
Looking for the perfect gift?
We’re pleased to bring your our new gift finder.
Using our Gift Finder, you can find a great toy by narrowing your search by a child’s gender or age, a price range, a specific category or brand. Plus, you can choose as many or as few selects as you wish in order to narrow down the toy results, and then sort them with our different sort options, in order to find the perfect toy!
Toys for the future engineer (K’nex, etc. toys that teach about machine functions)
You know why a lot of us didn’t like school? It was simply kind of boring. For some of us, it was challenging, but for many, it’s just that the material was already old to us by the time we got to it.
If you were already reading Doctor Seuss before you ever started first grade, you were probably ready for a little something more by that point. Some of us got lucky and were maybe skipped ahead a grade or two, while others simply had to settle for being the bored smart kid in the class.
When you’re young, you tend to latch on to certain things, and it’s important that your parents nurture that interest (even if it does result in boredom at school). For example, when a kid who’s always been playing around with legos toys, K’nex and other mechanical toys starts learning about simple and complex machines in school, he or she is going to wind up saying “Haven’t I already been over this?” The wise teacher will administer some slightly advanced curriculum to the child.
Being way ahead of the class, again, while it can make school a little dull, winds up being very important later in life. It’s always the kid who found grade school dull who winds up being accepted to an elite academy for future engineers.
If you want to facilitate your future-engineering-genius’s creativity and grasp of the material, the good news is that you have quite a lot of options. The better toymakers out there craft their products with an understanding of the way a child’s brain functions. Kids don’t think they’re training for a career in designing new ways to harvest and cultivate food, or that they’re going to engineer an ingenious solution to fossil fuels, they’re just having fun, putting different things together and seeing what they come up with.
Cool toys for car kids (lego racers, remote control cars, etc)
If you walk into any classroom in the country, you’re going to have every little boy and girl pegged within a few minutes when it comes to what they’re into. That girl reading National Geographic loves animals, the boy over there doodling in his notebook and ignoring the teacher is the artist, and the kid holding his fists in the air in front of him going “Vrooooom, vroooommmmm! EEEEEE!” is obviously the one who’s into cars.
It’s one of those fascinations that, for many of us, begins in early childhood and carries right on into adulthood, and then right on into old age. While in real life, we may have to settle for a more affordable and modest vehicle, leaving the hot rods and custom machines to racers and movie stuntmen, the escapism of a good car chase flick, or just a walk through a classic car show leaves most adults with a smile on their face, thinking about what we could drive if only we didn’t have to hold down a job and maintain a respectable living!
If it’s your son or nephew who’s nuts about V8 engines and knows more about fuel injection than you do, here are a few words of advice: Encourage that. Whenever you go to work on the car, let the boy tag along, explain to him what you’re doing and allow him to help out. At the very least, you’re going to raise a kid who can take care of these things for himself when he reaches driving age. And secondly, keep encouraging his infatuation with cars with the right toys.
Some of the coolest cars toys actually come from Legos. Lego racers, for instance, are pretty cool. They let the kid put together a race car either based on the instructions, or they can build one of their own design.
How to shop for a niece’s birthday
Just as with shopping for any kid, the trick to getting the perfect present is to know what your niece is into. Some girls may love toys like My Little Pony. Oftentimes, sure, that’s a safe guess, but what about the girls who consider My Little Pony a little too, well… just a bit too, you know, girly, and prefer something more along the lines of Dora the Explorer or a good lego set?
Sometimes you can get lucky with a random guess, but there are only two ways to know for sure that you’re getting the girl something she can enjoy. The first approach is to make a call to your sister or brother and ask what your niece loves more than anything.
This method works, but we don’t really like this approach because it’s kind of admitting defeat. A gift should really be from the heart, and if you have to ask someone else what to get, that’s sort of like cheating.
What we like is, if you don’t already know what you want to get for your niece, spend a little time with her. Take your niece out for lunch, go to the playground together, do something to hang out with the kid for a little while, and you should know exactly what to get her before the afternoon is up.
Playmobil line of products launch offer
We’re excited to introduce Playmobil products into Yogee.com.au. So, to celebrate its new arrival we’re giving away a free playmobil key ring and Playmobil’s full color catalogue when you order any Playmobil product (While stock last).
Plus, we are giving away a Playmobil Go-Cart Race Compact Set for you to win. Click here to enter the competition.
PLAYMOBIL Airport 4310 Jet Plane
Brainy Baby line of products in stock now
Brainy Baby® is the pioneer and leader in developing videos for very young children that introduce preschool basic concepts. For more than 12 years our expanded product line of DVDs, books, games and toys have presented these concepts by using bright colours, familiar objects, positive music, and friendly, encouraging voices. Read more here.
Did you know that Brainy Baby has been awarded in excess of 40 awards from a number of the leading international authorities on children’s education?
Click here for list of awards.
Introducing Monsters Vs Aliens
When alien robots come to destroy the earth, the military is forced to unleash their top secret weapon…monsters! The monsters must come together using their array of gadgets, weapons and monster strength to combat the aliens and save the world from imminent destruction.
Check out Monsters Vs Aliens toys
