Playing Is Educational

Teaching kids how to tell time can be a difficult endeavor. Kids don’t want to sit and memorize numbers on a clock so it’s important to be creative when teaching this important everyday skill. Here’s how to use the game Bingo in teaching kids how to tell time:
1. Make up Bingo cards with one time of day per box (i.e. 12:45 or 10:30)
2. Using a large clock set the hands to a specific time.
3. Ask the children what time it says on the clock. If they have that time written on their Bingo sheet they can mark it off.
4. When a child fills in enough spaces to get Bingo they win!

You can play the game as many times as you want and make winning fun with little prizes.

Educational toys don’t have to be complex or even electronic to stimulate your child’s mind. Colorful building blocks are recognized as one of the best educational toys on the market. Babies, as young as six months, can begin to stretch their minds and develop fine motor skills through playing with the colorful blocks. Think of all the learning that can be accomplished through moving, stacking, sorting and identifying different shapes and different colored blocks. Even the simple act of filling and then dumping out a bucket of blocks can strengthen hand-to-eye coordination in a young infant.

As your child grows older, you’ll notice that while some educational toys have fallen to the wayside, the allure of blocks remains. Children love to build towers and forts, even if it’s only to knock them down later. Still, before the destruction your child is gaining preliminary insights to geometry and even architecture. Playing with smaller scale blocks, like Legos, will further develop fine motor skills.

It’s my personal belief that our culture has promoted a dumbing-down effect for many years, and that’s why I pledged to give my child every academic advantage possible. If you look at the correspondence and speeches of early American heroes, you’ll be shocked at the level of intellect that was on display in that relatively primitive age. Even without access to quality public education, people pursued knowledge on their own.

In recent years, the incentive has been removed. We have little reason to learn anything about the world around us. Whereas most Canadians are familiar with the United States’ political climate, few Americans take the time to learn about Canada, Mexico or any other countries for that matter. When I found some educational games online, I quickly sought out a program featuring a world atlas and encyclopedia of world history all in one.

These days, parents are turning to multimedia in order to keep their kids entertained and stimulated. It’s enough to make some of us wonder what happened to the simplicity of teaching through books and human interaction. For a certain generation of Americans, Dr. Seuss books represented one of the most prominent tools utilized in early childhood education.

In his remarkable run of popular kids’ books, Seuss broached serious topics such as war, ethnic diversity and discrimination in ways that appealed to children. His silly rhyming structure helped to mask the serious moral lessons he tried to teach, and the dressed-up language made the message more palatable and less preachy. And of course the artwork alone makes these books worth a return trip even decades after that first read.

It’s possible to pick up a foreign language at any age, but children will always be ideal learners. Their minds have not yet conformed to English grammatical rules and conventions, which means they can pick up foreign pronunciations afresh. Even though kids have the ability to learn other languages with relative ease, it doesn’t guarantee they’ll show any interest.

To engage children in learning more effectively, try using vocabulary flashcards. Parents can create customized educational kids games, rewarding them for a successful study session. As soon as it begins to feel like work, kids become more likely to tune out, so be sure to revise the rules of the game to keep them enthralled.

small pieces, a few are bound to slip off the table, get stuck in the heat vent, or get sucked up by the vacuum cleaner. While people are usually willing to forgive a few missing pieces, there’s little to do but throw away a puzzle that starts missing five, ten, or more pieces.

That’s why so many people are drawn to puzzle blocks. Typically much larger entities, if these pieces fall on the floor, they’re easy to spot. They also usually make a unique and beautiful 3-D piece of art when completed. In this way, they also make a great piece of room décor when completed. If your child has completed the puzzle several times and tires of actually putting it together, he or she can simply glue the pieces together, and the result will be an attractive and detailed wooden statue.

There is nothing quite as scary as becoming a new parent. You are suddenly presented with more responsibility than you’ve ever had before. But for many parents, once that initial fear wears off, there is still a more nagging fear that you won’t raise your children well. Especially since everyone you know is most certainly offering advice, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. What advice do you take? What advice do you disregard?Although it’s easier said than done, the best thing for new parents to do is relax. At the most basic level, children just need a loving, supportive home. Provide this, and your child is sure to flourish. Also don’t forget that an emphasis on education will give them a huge advantage in the world, both professionally and personally. Instill a love of learning early with various educational toys, and your child is sure to thank you in the long run.

This human brain cross-section model is a valuable tool for teaching students about the complexities of the human brain’s anatomy. 

The cross-section model comes apart for hands-on classroom demonstrations.  One half  of the brain model is labeled with the parts of the organ while the other has letters for testing purposes.

Parts of the human brain and their functions:

Cerebrum / Cortex – Largest part of the human brain associated with higher thought and action, that is divided into the following sections:

• Frontal Lobe – associated with attention, motivation, reasoning, problem solving, planning, decision making, parts of speech, movement, and emotions
• Parietal Lobe – associated with movement, orientation, recognition, and perception of stimuli
• Occipital Lobe – associated with visual processing and recognition of the printed word
• Temporal Lobe – associated with memory, perception and recognition of auditory stimuli, memory, and speech

Other sections are also illustrated on the human brain model.

Do you want to provide your child with an educational toy that will increase eye-hand coordination along with shape and color recognition?  If so, we would like to recommend a shape sorting pounder.

As your child hammers away on the pegs of this shape sorting pounder, he will increase his eye-hand coordination and fine motor skills.  While hammering, you can help increase his color and shape recognition by repeating the name of the color or shape of the peg that he is hammering.  Take turns, ask him to tell you the color or shape that he wants you to hammer.

Unit blocks are the #1 must have early childhood toys because they are  imagination-building educational toys that are fun, creative, and educational.  When boys and girls build castles, villages, bridges, or  towering buildings, they are also building their imagination and fine motor skills.

Unit Blocks Marble Run, created by Guidecraft, provides for the combination of fun and lessons of marble runs with the traditions and educational foundations of unit block play.  They will be a instant classroom and home favorite.

This set can be expanded easily by integrating it with traditional classroom unit blocks.