All toys are designed to encourage skills and abilities in babies and young children. Whether it is to help them identify colours, shapes and animals, help with their spatial awareness or even encourage an interest and develop curiosity and social skills such as sharing, it should never be assumed that a toy is simply a toy.
The purpose of kids’ toys becomes more important as children approach primary school age. This is the time when, as a parent or carer, you could introduce educational toys to help your child get a good start in learning the skills they will need in school.
What sort of kids’ toys should you be looking for?
In addition to learning about colours, shapes and animals, pre-schoolers will need to be introduced concepts of letters, numbers and language skills. There are lots of toy manufacturers that specialises in educational toys, creating fun games that range from simple puzzles to the ultimate in modern technological gadgets that will harness their creative powers and help them to learn without your child getting bored or frustrated.
Incorporating these sorts of toys into your child’s playtime is one way that you can gently give your child a head start without being too pressurising or forceful and making them anxious.
Toys that help children create – such as construction toys in the form of Lego, also encourage them to focus, concentrate and use skills such as problem-solving skills and hand-eye coordination. The beauty of toys such as these are that no child would guess for a moment that they were learning, they simply feel that they are playing and having fun, but the fact is that they are picking up the basis of essential skills that they will be building on once they enter education.
Teaching philosophies such as the Steiner system focuses on a system of learning called learning through play. They believe the children learn more effectively by and through playing, and that games are an important part of that process. But toys don’t only teach children practical skills; they are also an important part of learning essential social cognitive thinking skills.
It is because of playing with toys around other children that our children learn how to share, how to relate to others, and how to work as a team. Even when they find themselves in uncomfortable situations such as being faced with a child who won’t share with them, or who has taken their toy away from them, these situations provide a child with the opportunity to learn skills to cope. After all, we all get older but little really changes from primary school, secondary school, college or university and then the workplace!
When children get older, toys and games can help them enjoy and learn notoriously difficult subjects such as science and maths. These subjects, which can cause anxiety amongst children who aren’t naturally able at them, can be made more approachable, interesting and fun with the use of toys and games. Teachers at school may choose to utilize them, but there is nothing to stop parents doing so at home too in order to complement their study.
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