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?

While having fun playing with a play parachutes, parachute games encourage cooperative play, noncompetitive play, and reinforces sharing and taking-turns.  Play parachute games also helps with strengthening upper body muscles, primarily the muscles in the shoulders, arms, and hands, and gross motor skills.  When playing together, parachute games develop perceptual motor skills and a sense of rhythm.  Language activities can also be incorporated into most parachute games.

See-Saw Pull:  From a sitting position, pull the parachute back and forth in a see-sawing motion.

Make Waves:  While gripping the parachute, everyone moves their arms up and down to make small and large waves.

Wave:  Where one person puts hands up and person next to her follows action. (like the wave at a baseball game)

The Ocean:  Pretend the parachute is the ocean.  Try to let everyone who wants to have a turn ‘in the ocean’. Everyone is standing and one or two children (shoes off) go toward the center and lie down - then all make waves - it’s a neat sensation.

Mushroom:  From a standing position, ask all the children to bend down and take hold of the parachute.  When the leader calls “up”, all the children raise their arms lifting the parachute up as high as they can, then everyone takes 3-4 giant steps toward the center - making a mushroom shape,  pulling the chute behind them and then they sit on the edge of the chute. 

Ball Roll:  Try to roll balls into the hole in the center of the parachute.

Popcorn:  Start with everyone holding the chute stretched out.  Place a number of small plastic balls, beanbags, or small stuffed animals on the chute. Shake the chute to make them rise like popcorn.  See how quickly you can bounce them off without letting go of the parachute.

Poison Snake:  Place four to six pieces of yarn or rope on the chute. By shaking the chute, try to make them hit the players on the other side. Keep track of who gets bitten.

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.

Play Parachutes come with or without handles and a variety of different sizes. 

We recommend that your play parachute has handles, because it is easy for kids to hold on to the handle as the parachute waves in the air.

To select the size of the play parachute depends on two factors:

1) What is the area that you have to use the play parachute?

2) What is quantity of people that you want to us the play parachute at a time? 

The 6 foot play parachute has 8 handles that works great for 3 to 4 people at a time.

The 12 foot play parachute has 12 handles that will accomidate from 4 to 6 people.

The 20 foot play parachute will accomidate with its 16 handles - 6 to 8 people.

A 24 foot play parachute has 20 handles and is great for 8 to 10 people.

When selecting a play parachute, for durability purposes, select a high quality nylon parachute that is double stitched.  We recommend that you always store your parachute in a carry/storage bag.  (Never use the play parachute for a sunshade or exposed to the sunlight for an extend time period.  Nylon detoriorates very quickly in direct sunlight.) 

With the use of parachute games, through cooperative group play, a play parachute will help build upper-body strengthening and muscle tone.  Parachute play also will help develop perceptual, cognitive, motor, social, and academic skills.

Young children enjoy rhythmical and musical activities; older people find it enjoyable and challenging by tossing a ball with the play parachute and moving as a team to catch it.

Parachute Games:

Wave:  This is like the wave at a football stadium.  One child starts out by raising his arms up or down in the air and the next child then follows the motion of the child before him.

Running by Numbers:  Run underneath and switch places with the other playmates.  Provide a number of the locations on the parachute, then call out the number.  This parachute game is a pleasure for all ages.

Parachute Tag:  Everyone lifts the parachute over their head.  Call out the child’s name and they need to skip, hop, or crawl to the other side.  The challenge is to make it to the other side before the parachute comes down and tags them. 

Bouncing Balls:  Hold the parachute tight at about chest level with 2 or 3 foam balls.  Have 3 or 4 children get underneath the parachute and then they need to try to knock the balls off while the children holding the chute need to try to keep them on.

Get a play parachute and get the health benefits of play parachute games. 

Dramatic play should be a primary part of every child’s early childhood activities.  This pretend play encourages a child to explore and expand his imagination by allowing him to invent and create his own scenarios.

As a child explores various ways to play, he will increase his problem solving skills, langauge skills, vocabulary skills, and story telling skills. 

Dramatic play also promotes a child’s willingness to cooperate and share with others, which will increase his communication skills and other social skills.

Dramatic play is only limited to a child’s imagination, and little children have very big imaginations.

Children learn through play.  As the toddler grows into the young child his interest widens.  More and more, educational kids games will interest him.  Puzzles and simple crafts will catch his attention and he will spend longer hours working on them.  Even at this age, the child will still need parent supervision but clearly, he is on his way to discovering independence.

Educational games for kids are bonding moments, with the parent, sibling or friend.  They are obviously using their minds when putting together a puzzle but there are benefits that are not immediately apparent. The game appears to be simple, yet experts say that they nevertheless require conceptual and social skills. Dealing with a playmate, for example, can be stressful at this stage.  Suffice it to say that even the simplest of games can be a learning experience.

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.