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Toys:
Tools for Learning
Through toys, children
learn about their world, themselves, and others. Choosing toys that appeal to
your children and foster their learning will help you make their early years
count.
Toys can teach children to:
- Figure out how things work
- Pickup new ideas
- Build muscle control and
strength
- Use their imagination
- Solve problems
- Learn to cooperate with others
Get
involved in your child's play
Match toys to fit your child's thinking,
language, physical skills, feelings, and friendships. Each child grows
and develops at a different pace, so watching your child's play and
playing together will enable you to choose appropriate toys and
worthwhile activities for your child.
Parents who take part in pretend play
with their one- to three-year-old children help them to develop mom
varied and complex play patterns. These children, in turn, engage in
more pretend play with other children and tend to be more advanced
intellectually, better able to understand others' feelings, and
considered more socially competent by their teachers. |
Remember that
good toys are not necessarily expensive, and children do not need very
many. The more a child can do with a toy, the more likely it is to be
educational. Here we some tips to help you choose toys wisely for your
child:
Hands-on toys build eye-hand coordination,
encourage ideas about how things work, and foster cooperation and
problem solving.
Art materials foster creativity and build skills that lead to reading,
writing, and seeing beauty in life.
Construction items contribute to muscle strength and help children learn
about science and number ideas.
Active play equipment builds strong muscles and confidence to meet
physical challenges.
Good Toys Are:
appealing and interesting to the child
proper for the child's physical capacities
appropriate for the child's mental and social
development
suitable for use in groups of children
well-constructed, durable, and
safe for the
ages of the children in the group
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Play
is the work of a child - Toys are the
tools
