Playing Is Educational

This is the first article in series of articles that will provide you the information that you should consider when purchasing a Wooden Outdoor Play Structure.  We will also provide you information regarding playground safety and installation safety tips.

This first article will provide you an overview of some of the general information that you should consider and these topics will be discussed in larger detail in our future articles.  If you have any other questions or suggestions, please e-mail us at customerservice@playingiseducational.com or submit a comment pertaining to this blog.

Let’s start out by discussing why you should even consider purchasing a Wooden Play Structure. 

1. A wooden play structure is an investment in your child.  We live in a world where technology has over-taken our children’s lives, with computers, ipods, and hand-held games.  Children have become less physically active.  Purchasing a wooden play structure will be an investment in your child’s physical development, social development, and imagination skills.
2. If you purchase a wooden play structure you will also be investing in your family’s togetherness and family fun.  Your wooden outdoor play structure will become a elegant gathering spot to visit your friends and family as the children play. 
3. You will also be investing into your home and yard because your wooden play structure will become the focus of your backyard landscape for years, and even generations, to come.

Now that know why you should invest into a wooden outdoor play structure, what else should you consider?

You need to determine what wooden play structure is going to be right for you and your child.

1. Determine where you are going to place your new outdoor play structure. 
2. What size do you want the wooden outdoor play structure?  (Allow additional room around the wooden play structure as a safety zone – for your child’s safety.  This will be discussed in a later article.)
3. What activities/features would your child enjoy?  (You may choose different features depending on your child’s age level.)
4. What kind of wood do you want to use for your outdoor play structure? (Premium Pine or Redwood)
5. Consider maintenance and safety features of the wooden play structure.
6. How easy are the instructions to install your new play structure?
7. What warranties come with your wooden play structure?

Other very important factors to consider are safety zones around the play structure and installation safety tips.  We want your child to have a nice, safe area to play in and avoid getting hurt.  (Did you know that each year, more than 200,000 children go to U.S. hospital emergency rooms because of injuries on playground equipment and about 50,000 of those are from home playgrounds.) 

All these topics will be discussed in detail in our later articles.  Make sure you add us to your feeds or add us to your favorites to receive these articles.  Once again, if you have any questions, comments, or additional topics you would like to have us address either respond to our blog in the comments area or e-mail us at customerservice@playingiseducational.com. 

Keep your child actively playing with this Fun-A-Saurus!

This 5 piece puzzle-like play structure can be assembled and disassembled to allow your child to have hours of fun. 

They can assemble all 5 pieces together and create a dinosaur-like character (like Puff the Magic Dragon) and they could imagine riding it to mystical places. 

They can attach the head and tail pieces to one center piece to create a sitting rocker! 

The 3 middle pieces can be assembled to create a ring (measures 34″ outside diameter and 22″ inside diameter) that can be used for other creative play activities or for your child to sit in. 

Construction Grid Blocks are heavy-duty low maintenance construction blocks that are perfect for young builders to use either indoors or outdoors.  These 12″ durable blocks are just right for your child’s hands and attach easily together allowing them to imagine and build their own castles and tunnels.

After the construction is done, they can have hours of fun playing with their own creations.

In a world full of electronic gadgets like TV, electronic hand-held games, and computers, sometimes us adults forget how important it is to allow our children to play with other educational toys.  Maybe we don’t even imagine how an ordinary toy is more then just entertainment.  For example, what is your first thought of when you hear of a lacing activity?  Did you just yawn? 

Well, lacing activities are very educational to your child.  By providing your child with a lacing activity, your child will increase his/her development skills like: hand-eye coordination; fine motor skills; and problem solving.  

Not only that, allowing your child to play with lacing activities can also help your child to learn about geometric shapes, colors, animals, and even the alphabet.  Check them out for yourself!

As winter approaches, children need indoor play activities that are fun and educational.  We recommend parachute games.  Playing parachute games encourages cooperative play.  Children will learn how to share and take turns. 

While playing with a parachute, children can increase strength in their shoulders, arms, and hands.  It will help with their sense of rhythm and also improve their language skills, perceptual motor skills, and listening skills.

When children work together they can make playing with a parachute fun!  Incorporate songs, rhymes, and movement activities to energize them.

Activities to play:

1) Play see-saw/tug-of-war while sitting down

2) Make waves with the parachute

3) Ball Roll – make the ball roll into the hole in the center of the parachute

4) Parachute Tag – call out a child’s name and have him run under the parachute before it comes down

5) Chute Ball – Place the ball on the parachute and throw the ball as high in the air as you can

After a child is born, they are introduced to many new noises.  Just imagine all the sounds around your house, from the rhythm of the washing maching or dryer as you are doing laundry to the voices and sounds of their parents or siblings.  

At a young age, your child will start learning about rhythm and developing musical skills from their first rattle or scrunch toy. 

We all appreciate a good rhythm and good music. 

Help your child develop their musical skills.  Encourage them to play with different musical instruments like a horn, piano, drum, xylophone, or tambourine.  Who knows, your child might become a famous classical artist like Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, or Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, or a popular artist like Billy Joel, Eric Clapton, Bob Seger, or Celine Dion. 

Help your child choose a lifestyle of eating healthy and nutritious foods. 

Food nutrition and food portion size will play a large role in your child’s healthy life.  When they play with pretend foods, they will learn about the food groups and about healthy and nutritious foods.  Let them be creative with life-like plastic meat, vegetables, dairy food, and fruit.  Encourage them to make you dinner with a salad and fruit for dessert.  Help them to plan a dinner party for several guests or pretend guests.  This dinner could include a salad, an appetizer, an entree with a vegetable, and a dessert.  Food can be a fun thing for your child to play with, they could pretend to eat what they want. 

By definition: An educational toy is a toy designed to teach people, typically children, about a certain subject or help them learn a skill as they play.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational toy

Puzzles:

Puzzles can teach a child topics like ABC’s, colors, shapes, animals, and geography.  Puzzles can also help with hand-eye coordination, teach sizes & shapes, and problem solving. 

Board Games and Card Games:

Board games and card games can be used to teach things like counting, colors, and reading, to more complex things like communication skills,  logical thinking, and organizational skills.

Games & Toys:

Games and Toys can be very educational to children.  By playing with educational games and toys, children can learn physical skills, such ashand-eye coordination, fine motor skills, gross motor skills, and even texture.  They can also learn about things like animals, colors, and the human body.

Dramatic Play / Creative Play:

Let them dress-up or play puppet show theater with puppets and dolls.  This will stimulate them to role play and express themselves through character play.  They can learn about different foods and even money by playing with Pretend Playsets.

Wooden Play Structures:

Children love to play outdoors on wooden play structures.  Wooden play structures encourage children to be physically active and mentally active as they determine if and how they can perform specific skills.  Children are increasing their imagination as they soar through the sky on a swing and play around it.

It is important to keep our young children involved and playing – get them to play with educational toys.

Over 4000 years ago, magnets were discovered in northern Greece.  One of the first uses of magnets was in mariner’s compasses. 

Today magnets come in many colors, shapes, and sizes.  Children find playing with magnets addictive as they build 3-D images with Award Winning -Magneatos construction sets, magnetic construction sets, and magnetic art sets. 

Magnets will provide for an endless amount of entertainment while increasing creative play and imaginative play.