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?

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. 

When you invest in a wooden play structure, you are making an investment in your child’s early childhood development by increasing her self-confidence, social skills, imagination, physical strength, and muscle coordination development. 

Self-Confidence:  At the beginning, your child will not know how to maneuver around a wooden play structure.  As he learns how to climb the ladders, slide down the slide, or swing on the swing,  she will increase her own self-confidence.

Social Skills:  A wooden play structure will provide a wonderful location for your child to increase his social skills and build life-long lasting friendships.  Your child can learn how to interact with her siblings, friends, or neighbors playing at his play structure, by sharing the swing or taking turns sliding down the slide.  They can plan their next imaginative adventures, tell stories, and play games in their own private fort deck areas. 

Imagination Development:  As your child plays with her steering wheel, telescope, and periscope on his outdoor play structure,  she can let  imagination run wild.  They can pretend that they are climbing a mountain, sailing a big ship, or flying to the moon.

Muscle Coordination and Physical Strength Development:  When your child plays on the climbing ladders or rock wall of the wooden play structure, your child will increase his balance, muscle coordination, and physical strength.

The key to investing in a wooden play structure is to make it a one time investment.  Make your investing decision as if your child is 10 years old.  Invest into a play structure large enough for your child to grow into, not out of.  That way you don’t have to purchase different playsets as your child gets older.

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. 

As we get deeper into winter, I know that I am longing for spring.

Until that time, I would like to encourage you to use indoor creative sand play activities using indoor sandboxes or sand & water tables. 

For us parents or teachers that want a mess-free experience, use a sealed sandbox where the sand is completely enclosed.  Your child can use magnetic wands to push magnetized creatures and vehicles through the sand and make trails. 

A sand and water table will allow your child to have a sensory experience with a large variety of educational play activities.  They can use plastic sand toys and molds to turn playtime into learning time.

Either way, your child will enjoy hours of creative play indoors. 

Don’t worry, spring will be here soon and we will all able to enjoy the beach and the sand again!

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.

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. 

Kids can get so bored staying inside on rainy days. In the autumn and winter bad weather comes way too often for active kids. But with a little thought and planning there are several activities parents can arrange for their children on rainy days.

A day of puppet show theater can be fun for the whole family. Let your kids make adorable little sock puppets out of old socks and build a stage out of cardboard boxes. Plan an evening performance and invite the neighbors over for popcorn and soda. Your kids may even begin to look forward to the next rainy day!

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.