According to the book, The Psychoeducational Assessment of Preschool Children, toys and play will accelerate your child’s language development, cognitive development, motor development, and social/emotional development. So, pretty much every substantial area of a person’s life depends on how well and how long they played with educational toys in their childhood.
In fact, the subconscious mind is being created in the first 7 years of life. It is altered by all the love, feedback, play, quality time, and learning that kids simply absorb through their closest environment. Their environment includes their parents, their closest relatives, the home they are being brought up in, the kindergarten or school they go to and the toys they play with.
As parents, we want the best for our children, just so they can grow up into healthy individuals. So, one way to do it is to choose the people and things they surround themselves with daily and enhance their constant learning.
In this article, we’ll share with you some tips and tricks on how to encourage your kids’ healthy growth by picking out the right kids’ products for each stage of their development. So, investing in toys can actually be quite beneficial!
Toys for Babies (0-12 months)
Babies love learning through their five senses: touch, smell, sight, hearing, and taste. Toys that will interest them would have to arouse at least one of their senses.
- Touch: As newborns, babies love to be held and feel the touch of the parents, to feel safe and protected. As they grow up, they’ll start touching other random things, such as blankets, clothes, etc. It’s very important to expose them to different textures, so they get familiar with several fabrics and feel the difference.
- Smell: The first smell is the smell of the mother and the mother’s milk. This is how babies will cling to you in the night with their eyes closed. When they are newborns, you can give them a teddy bear or a new toy they can smell and feel. Once they start tasting food, they will be exposed to a variety of smells.
- Sight: All the toys for kids are so colorful, don’t you agree? This is because through toys they can see all the different colors in the world. Make sure you show them colorful toys to develop their vision. Once they are over 7 months they can start playing with building blocks and develop hand-eye coordination.
- Hearing: The mother’s voice is the first thing that babies hear. In addition, you can buy them music boxes or toys that imitate certain animals’ sounds, to develop their hearing. You can easily check your kids’ hearing capacity, by turning on a music box. You’ll see that they turn around to see it, or they’ll make a certain face to the music.
- Taste: Babies love putting everything in their mouths. They’ll start with their hands, clothes and continue with everything that comes in their way. To keep your baby safe, avoid buying tiny toys that they can swallow and always buy age-appropriate toys. This way you’ll avoid any potential accidents. Make sure the toys you buy them are clean and big enough. Then, your baby can taste them all they want.
Toys for Toddlers (1- 3 years)
This is the age when your kid starts walking and speaking as well. It’s certainly the period when most cognitive processes take place. So, when buying toys for your toddler you have to think about their interests, spark their imagination, learn numbers, colors, animals, shapes, etc.
To entertain and educate your toddler at the same time you should consider toys such as:
- slot wooden puzzles – to practice and improve their memory;
- magnetic fishing games with colors, shapes, animals – to learn the colors and shapes;
- creating toys by using paper and scissors – to improve their motoric system;
- building blocks – for their gross motor skills and spurring their creativity;
- a xylophone – to develop a sense of rhythm while practicing their motor skills
- different language speaking toys – to get a sense of a different language and pick up some words.
- a set of fixing tools, gardening tools, kitchen and cooking tools to spur their creativity and imagination.
Toys for Preschoolers (3-5 years)
Preschool children should learn the numbers and letters with the help of toys. You can prepare them for school through some fun learning activities. You can start with simple alphabet puzzles and even go on with creating words. You shouldn’t disregard outdoor activities because they also have a powerful impact on your kids’ brain development. Make sure that your kids are physically active because exercise has shown to be beneficial for brain development. You can buy them a bike and teach them how to ride it on those warm days, while when it’s colder go out in the snow and be creative building a snowman, skiing or skating. Basketball, football, and volleyball are also options!
Toys for School Kids (5-12 years)
By the time your kids reach this stage, they would have formed a certain set of interests and preferences. Most of the time your school kids will decide for themselves when it comes to buying toys. However, you can choose along with them in the area of their interest. For instance, if they like a certain hero or character, you can buy them a board game or a puzzle with the character they like. Once they are in school, they’ll probably have a lot of homework, so once they have some free time make sure they are spending it wisely, nurturing a certain talent or interest they have. Buy them watercolors and let them experiment for a while, buy them tennis equipment and see whether they’ll like it. This is the period of time when you can let them experiment becoming whatever they’d like to be when they grow up! You can get these from Montessori toys Dubai.
Final Thoughts
As can be seen, if you choose the right toys for each period of your kids’ development you will help them acquire the needed knowledge. By choosing the right toys you are accelerating their cognitive, motor and language skills. Inspiring them, teaching them and helping their brain development is your responsibility as a parent. By making education fun from a very young age, you’ll help them have a positive attitude towards learning further in their life as well!
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