Why Educational Toys Are Important to a Child’s Development

1-12 months old: At an early age, sensory play helps stimulate your child’s senses. As your child continues to grow and develops hand-eye coordination, families can begin introducing toys that encourage more interaction. As your child becomes more active, we suggest introducing problem solving toys.

These toys will help children work through conflicts and become familiar with cause and effect such as “If I do this than that will happen”. They will also build up their confidence once they’ve been able to figure out how a toy works after trial and error and guidance. Other great toys to introduce would be ones that promote movement.

12-24 months old: As your child reaches the one-year mark or older, they will soon become very mobile. Introducing the right toys to them will help to teach balance and coordination and will increase your child’s curiosity with their new-found mobility. As your child begins to learn to walk, you can also incorporate learning numbers by counting their steps which will help them become more familiar with the terms and meaning even if they do not quite understand at this age.

Themed playsets are great educational toys to introduce between the ages of 12-18 months because they will help develop your child’s recognition skills. For example, if you have a theme playset that involves animals, practice what sound each animal makes. This will also help with language development by reinforcing the names of colors and shapes.

Examples of toys that will help your child reach new milestones between 1 and 2 years old include:

2+ years: As your children become a bit older and more active, you can also introduce toys that promote more physical play. When showing them how to use certain toys, such as a tricycle, always make sure they are aware of safety concerns such as wearing a helmet and incorporate in the process of using the toy, so they know that if they ride their tricycle, they must have their helmet on as well.

This is also a great age to introduce toys that incorporate cognitive skill building. There are many different toys that can help children practice writing – whether they are drawing or writing their names – and their small motor skills. Games and books can also help your child develop name recognition and emergent literacy skills. These types of toys will show your child a visual version of what they are hearing and vice versa. For example, the repetition of reading a book about a dog and seeing a picture of a dog will allow your child to begin to associate a picture of a dog with the sound a dog makes. Reading books that have color pictures and a few words on each page with your child will begin to familiarize them with how words they hear look on the pages.

Original Source:  Educational Playcare

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