Playing Is Educational

A child’s early learning is enhanced by early childhood activities that promote imagination, from independent play to interactive play.  There are a wide variety of early childhood toys available to enhance their imaginative play. 

On a daily basis, your child see you prepare and cook meals.  There are many toys available for your child’s food play activities that will provide hours of educational play.  Pretend play food is available that ranges from fruits and vegetables to multicultural meals, such as, sushi from Japan, pasta pronto from Italy, and fiesta flavors from Mexico.

Have your child prepare you a pretend meal.  They can prepare a picnic lunch basket, have a pizza party, or set the table with plastic play dishes and have a fine dining experience.

What is your favorite pretend food play experience?

During the day, children observe their surroundings and then role-play their observations during their pretend play.  With the use of childrens educational toys, they can play out working in an office space, a supermarket, or an animal hospital. 

When your children engage in pretend play, they are also improving their problem solving skills, oral skills, and writing skills.  Their self-esteem will increase as they discover that they can be anything, just by pretending.

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.

Guidecraft Magneatos are award-winning magnetic construction toys that allow children to experience the fun and mystery of magnet play, while at the same time build their imagination and motor skills. 

Magneatos magnetic playsets are packed with large magnetic pieces that are kid-friendly,  easy to handle, and safe to play with, yet these magnetic construction sets are more challenging then standard blocks and stacking toys.

How Magneatos Work:

A set of Magneatos comes with two basic pieces: magnetic balls and magnetic rods. The balls make a joint that can connect two rods. Put three or four rods together and you’ve got the base for a bridge, tower, or anything else that your imagination can come up with.

Award Winning Toy:

Guidecraft Magneatos won the prestigious Oppenheim Toy Award in 2005 and 2006, and also won its SNAP, Special Needs Adaptable Product, both years.  They were also featured in Money magazine and on the Today Show on NBC.

Magnetic play has never been so easy and fun, so if your child is ready for something more advanced than their ABC blocks, take a look at Magneatos.

Do you want to provide your child with an interactive early childhood activity that doesn’t require batteries, fuel cells, or liquid fuel, and promotes physical activity that is safe, inexpensive, and quiet?

If the answer was YES, then check out this PlasmaCar by PlaSmart!

The PlasmaCar is a unique active ride-on toy that is sleek and aerodynamic, just like a race car, and is easy to operate on any smooth, flat surface.

It is also built to last because it is made of state-of-the-art, high-quality ABS plastics, rugged and durable for your child that is on the go.  It features six wheels, a seat, footrests and a steering wheel.  That is all it take to operate your PlasmaCar - other than your child.  There are no pedals, no gears, and no batteries required.

The PlasmaCar is available in green, purple, blue, or red.

Your child will love how fast they can go on the PlasmaCar, and at the same time they will be physically active, increasing their coordination skills, and building upper-body muscle strength.

Here is how it works!

To propel the PlasmaCar, you rotate the steering wheel continuously from left to right.  It also works in reverse.  To zoom backwards, just switch the set of four front wheels around so that the larger ones are closest to the front of the car.  To stop your PlasmaCar, just cease rotating the steering wheel and, when the car slows, put your feet on the ground to bring it to a full stop.

The PlasmaCar can go 2.8 meters per second - that’s over 10 km/h, yet be safe for your child.  As with all bike activities, we also recommend the use of a child’s bike helmet.

The PlasmaCar is Pure Energy and Pure Fun! 

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.

We have all grown up with the familiar blocks called Lego!  These educational toys allowed us to increase our imagination and fine motor skills; building castles with towers and imagining who was in the castle made up part of our daily activity.

But, where did they come from?

In 1932, Ole Kirk Christiansen, a master carpenter and joiner, established a small business in the village of Billund in Denmark where he manufactured stepladders, ironing boards and wooden toys.  Then, in 1934, the company adopted the name LEGO for their products, formed from the Danish words “LEg GOdt” or “play well”.  Ironically, they later realized that in Latin the word means “I study” or “I put together”.

In 1947, the LEGO company dedicated itself to the toy business and purchased a plastic injection-molding machine for making toys.  Up to this point there were no LEGO bricks as we know them today.  The factory produced approximately 200 different varieties of plastic and wooden toys - but the predecessor of the familiar brick was created under the name of Automatic Binding Bricks; they were available only in Denmark at this time. 

By 1951, the plastic toys accounted for half of the company’s orders, signaling the subtle shift from the familiar wooden toys to the new and more popular plastic. Because of this, the Automatic Binding Bricks were renamed “LEGO Mursten” or “LEGO Bricks” - the familiar term we all know them by today.

Eventually the “LEGO System of Play” was released, allowing an owner of a LEGO System to expand and create without a strict set of guidelines to follow.

In 1967, LEGO released the DUPLO brand - a larger version of the familiar block but for children under five years old. In 1969, DUPLO was released internationally and took off like a rocket as parents everywhere take advantage of the opportunity to let their children play with the safe and creative early childhood toy.

Today, LEGO remains a family business, with grandson Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen currently at the helm.   LEGO has sold over 200 million sets in over 100 countries.
 
LEGO sets are used for early learning activities everywhere.  LEGO Sets range from Community Building Sets to Wild Animal Sets and even Fire Rescue and Hospital Sets. 

It is a well known fact that block play increases a toddler’s eye and hand coordination. Also, playing with toy building blocks encourages logical thinking and increases a toddler’s awareness of the space around him. Having building blocks as part of a toddler’s toys promotes appropriate social behavior. In addition, a toddler learns to share and build with parents, siblings, and other playmates. Language skills have also been discovered to greatly improve by playing with building blocks. This takes place when the child is encouraged to speak about what he or she is building.

Toddler building blocks are available in different kinds. You can use a set that has number and alphabets to initiate your child’s learning process. The child can be taught to be familiar with numbers and alphabets by choosing between two blocks. The child can also learn to distinguish alphabets and numbers by picking out a particular number or letter that has been asked for. In addition to these educational activities, these blocks can also be used just as plain toddler toys. The blocks can be stacked up to form a tower and then a ball can be used to knock the tower down.

The key to teaching counting to your child is to make counting entertaining. 

Start teaching your child about numbers and counting in their early childhood activities.  They can begin learning how to count in their everyday play, long before they even realize that they are being taught.  You must be interactive when you play with your child.    These techniques can even work long before your child can talk.  

Here are some everyday play activities that you can do to help teach counting skills.  

Playing with Blocks - Childrens Educational Toys:

When you are playing blocks, count them as your stack them together.  You child will be entertained, because they will 9 times out of 10, knock the stack down.  Smile and say, “oh no”, and then stack them together again as you are count them.

Ask your child to hand you some blocks and as they do - count them.

Sort out the blocks by color, shape, design, or size.  Count how many of each you have.        

As your child advances, alternate who stack the blocks together.  You can place the first block and count 1, then have your child stack the next block and count 2, etc…

You may even find things like flash cards, dominoes, or a wooden bead abacuses with beads that are different colors and shapes, very useful to teach your child their counting skills.

Around Your Home, Store, or Restaurant Games - Arithmetic Games

As you dress your child, count their fingers, toes, arms, legs, eyes, etc…  Count the buttons or snaps on their clothes.

As they eat their favorite foods - grapes, pepperoni, french fries - you can count how many they ate.   

Count the stairs as you walk up and down them.

When you are at the store, count the number of products that you put into the cart.  Tell your child that you need three boxes of cereal and count them as they load them into the cart.

Singing and Counting

Children love singing and dancing around.  Use songs to help your child learn about counting and arithmetic skills.  Start out by singing songs like: “5 Little Monkeys Jumping in the Bed” and then move into other musical tunes.  There are many CD’s or DVD’s that are focused on math skills like counting, addition, and subtraction.  Listen to them at least once a day.

As mentioned earlier, the key to teaching counting to your child is to make counting entertaining.  This can be achieved by using these early childhood activities and arithmetic games.  Remember to count out loud to them when they are young, and to do these activities thoughout the day to reinforce these mathematics and counting skills.