Educational Toys
6 Reasons Why Educational Toys Are So Important
There’s no doubt that through play children learn important skills. Educational toys can not only be fun, but they can also help your child learn new things in an interesting and exciting way, right from a very early age. Here, we’ve listed some of the key reasons why it’s a good idea to invest in some quality educational toys for your child.
In the early years there will be lots of ‘functional’ play. This is where your child will use the same toy over and over again for the same purpose. By doing this he/she will gain confidence in their abilities which will lead to him/her wanting to explore and play with new things. Right from the beginning, this sort of play is aiding your child’s development.
Make learning fun- Children will learn better if they see it as something fun. Once it becomes boring and monotonous, they will become disinterested. This is where educational toys come in. They help children learn new skills whilst maintaining all the fun of playtime.
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3 Benefits of Sustainable Toys
It is more important now than ever to lessen the impact we have on the planet. Sustainable options are the way forward, and while we understand what that means in terms of our homes and our cars, do we really know what it means in relation to our children’s toys? Here, we discuss three benefits of choosing sustainable options when it comes to toys.
Education
A huge benefit of buying sustainable toys for your children and others is that it allows you to open up a good conversation about the reasons for buying green and looking after the planet in a way that children are able to understand. Explaining the reasons why your daughter’s new dollhouse is made from recycled wood, for example, or helping your son understand that his water pistol is made from non-harmful, recycled plastic contextualises the important issue of sustainability in a children’s framework and allows them to get on board in a meaningful way.
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3 Valuable Lessons Your Child Learns Through Play
It’s not exactly news that children learn through play–in every culture in the world, since the beginning of time, children have discovered the world around them through play. We know that from spacial awareness to hand-eye coordination, toys and the act of playing with them are how our kids learn to navigate the world. It’s also true, however, that there are some important emotional and social lessons that toys can teach children. It’s not just about the act of playing with toys, it’s the process of discovering things with friends that often leaves our kids with the most valuable lessons. Here are three lessons you might not have realised toys were teaching your kids…
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Problem-Solving and Toys
Problem-solving. Hone your skills in this area enough and there’ll be little that can stand in between you and success. From a young age we start to develop our problem-solving strategies, and they come to define much of who we are and how we live as adults. Think of the adults you know in your life. We’re betting if you think hard enough, you can identify different types of problem-solvers. There are those who always manage to think outside the box, find creative solutions and see a way through the confusion to clarity. There are also those who rely on others to solve their problems for them, who give up when something poses difficulty, and who instead complain out of a sense of entitlement. Which kind of problem-solver do you want your child to be? Obviously, we all hope pour children develop into capable, resilient adults, and there are several ways in which you can encourage this from an early age in the way that you approach toys and playtime. Here we show you a few ways in which you can help your child, through play, develop excellent problem-solving abilities:
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7 of the Best Educational Toys
Toys aren’t just for mindless entertainment; they play an important part in the educational and social development of your child. These days, toy stores and websites selling online toys all pay extra attention to providing strong educational options. Here we look at some of the best educational toys for your child.
Building…
For infants and toddlers, wooden blocks are a great first toy to have. These have many benefits; for example, they can teach children about shapes and colours, and can help with their cognitive skills as they sort the shapes and colours into the appropriate groups. They’re also wonderful for developing the imagination as children create their own mini-masterpieces. There’s the added bonus that blocks are generally big enough that they don’t provide a choking hazard for young children. As children get older, Lego or Mechano sets can help to continue the development of cognitive skills and imagination, as well as helping them to follow instructions, as these usually come with manuals.
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5 great educational toys
Everyone knows that children learn by play. So it stands to reason that we all want our children to get the most out of their play. There are many great toys around, and so why not combine a great toy that kids love with a learning tool.
Here are five great educational toys for children and why they are so good for your kids
1) Wooden Blocks
Wooden blocks have been around for ever and there is a simple reason for that, children love them. Kids of all ages and genders love playing with wooden blocks.
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Toys and games for a rainy day
This article was written by Sonja Walker B.A.Dip.Ed
“Rain, rain, go away, come again another day!”
Being stuck inside because of wet winter weather is a challenge for active, curious kids.
While computer games, the Wii and DVDs are a good standby on a rainy day, sometimes they are more trouble than they are worth, especially when they cause sibling squabbles and petty arguments.
So what can you do this winter to keep your kids engaged and entertained when they can’t go outside?
Why infants need educational baby toys
When a baby comes into the world it cannot really do much. A baby cannot lift its hand to touch its nose, a baby cannot focus on small objects. As the infant develops in the first year it will require different types of toys to stimulate and encourage the development of many skills.
The good thing is that most baby toys on the market are in and of themselves educational toys. Toys to teach things like sound, vision, auditory and physical sensations. These toys work to build on the baby’s very small collection of references and contexts.
Sight
To begin with, a baby’s first skill would be sight. A baby does not see the world as we do, they are still developing their ocular muscles and their brain has got no points of reference or ways to understand what they are seeing.
Educational Games: What they can teach and how
The philosopher Piaget was famous for his theory that children learn through play. A child’s play is their work and they will learn through experiencing the world around them. Educational games and toys will aid a child’s learning of their physical world and their body, their emotional and psychological world and their impact on the world in terms of their speech and communication.
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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.
