Should toddlers get play toys or educational toys for the holidays?

Education

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by Magda Healey

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Summary: The whole life is an education for a toddler, but it's worth thinking about what skills you want your child to develop when choosing toys.

LEARNING THROUGH PLAY

I voted for "educational", but there is an and unnecessary confusion in the title of this debate. We are talking about toddler here - those little people that have just learned to walk, aged roughly 1 to at the most 3 years old. They don't distinguish between "play" and "education". I don't just mean that toddlers don't know the difference on a cognitive level, obviously. I also mean that, fundamentally, there IS no difference.

*The amazing growing babies*

All toddler play is, to some extent, educational. Most of the toddler life (baring routine care activities like nappy changing and going to sleep) is educational.

Babies come to this world as helpless, tiny, mewling creatures equipped with their basic instincts, certain temperamental propensities, some variety in the way their brains are hard-wired and, most of all, and immense, incredible potential for learning. Their brains are like sponges. Now wonder - they have to be to achieve what we take for granted. Just think about what happens in the first 3 years after the birth.

Three year olds are recognisably human: they can walk, run and skip; they can talk in language that is 85% grammatically correct and grows its vocabulary at an astonishing hourly rate; they are usually toilet trained, can feed themselves and are getting socialised. They already know a lot of things about the world in general and they have already learned the basic habits and customs of the culture they are growing in. They know about animals and objects, men and women, colours and sounds, friends and parents, safety and danger.

Most toddlers in the world achieve all these milestones with hardly any help from purpose-made toys. Those who live in the developed modern societies are provided with the additional stimulus of purpose-made play things (this probably to some extent makes up for the fact that they are much less exposed to the daily work activities of adults, as those tend to be conducted away from home and often in a mysterious environment of information-processi ng offices of knowledge based economy).

*the meaning and role of play*

Have you noticed how small children will play with anything? In fact, they will play particularly eagerly with anything new and anything that they have seen adults using. But of course they will: little humans learn by modelling. My 21 month old observes us all with an eager eye and IMMEDIATELY copies things we do, and even more so, he copies things his 7 year old sister does. Often, these are things that are completely inappropriate for a toddler, but that's for parents to sort out. The point is that that's how toddlers learn new behaviours and new skills essential for their development.

So far we have natural development, playing with everyday and varied objects, especially new, and modelling behaviour of others. But there is, of course plenty of room for toys in a life of a toddler, and there is great convenience for parents to have toys: we know that they are safe, designed for children and we can use the distinction between "toy" and "not toy" to teach about some boundaries.

You will understand now why I think all toys are educational, though. They are because all THINGS are educational when you are 2 years old!

There is, of course, some difference between natural learning that happens via spontaneous exploration and modelling, and activities explicitly designed to develop particular cognitive skills and implant knowledge. What we often call "educational" toys frequently refers to this type of learning, but what needs to be remembered is that a small child is also taking crucial steps in their social and emotional development.

*Are all toys equally good, then?*

Taking into account all said above, I do think you should think about what toys to buy for a toddler, rather than buy zillions of them mindlessly until your Toys-R-Us trolley topples (and how many times I did just that!). And the type of skill or development that a given toy will facilitate should be one of important criteria for choosing a particular toy.

What type of stimulation is needed will, crucially, depend entirely on the child.

My daughter (who is now 7) never played with "play toys" much. She started doing art & craft things very early, was extremely dexterous and picked up computer skills (eg mouse/touch pad) at a very early age, has enjoyed playing educational games and looking at factual and fictional children's books. She also had great powers of concentration and long before she learned to read by herself, she loved listening to audio books. We got her a lot of typical educational toys that challenged her and developed her cognitive skills.

But she didn't really play "pretend" games much, she hardly played with baby dolls (she does occasionally now), and her box of Barbies and Cindies has always been a jumble of limbs, tangled hair and half torn clothes. I had to make special effort to play things like shops or tea parties with her, as she very rarely did it by herself. For her, "educational" toys were her preferred playthings, and "play-toys" were what I had to choose to use with her.

My 21 month old son is entirely different. He enjoys raiding cupboards and climbing on book shelves as much as any toddler, but he actually plays with his toys. He uses his cars, digger, lorries and trucks; he sorts animals into little groups and imitates their sounds, he throws balls without an adult needing to encourage him.

*The best toys*

All things said, I do think that some types of toys are so very good that all children should have a chance to play with them. And strangely enough, a lot of them are what would be considered "educational" toys.

1) Books: There are so many fantastic books for toddlers now, and they are such a brilliant value for money too! Touch and feel books, lift-the-flap books, stories and non-fiction, rhymes and songs, with brilliant illustrations by great artists. I like Usborne books, they are great for young toddlers, and so is Lucy Cousins; and for bit older children Julia Donaldson and Maurice Sendak are my favourites. I am not very fond of robotic books that read stories by themselves, I think very small children need interaction with an adult to really benefit from a book.

2) Construction toys: LEGO (or Duplo for toddlers) is an absolute classic, but all children need these toys that will develop their eye and hand co-ordination, spatial thinking and imagination. I love LEGO, but stickle-bricks or MegaBlocks are also great.

3) Animals: small plastic or wooden animals, farm and wild, realistic or just schematic are excellent for play and for teaching animal names, sounds and movements.

4) Trains and other vehicles: toddlers are too small to play with track-based trains by themselves, but if you help, they will enjoy it immensely and will learn about how objects behave and improve their co-ordination. Brio wooden track and magnet-connecting trains are the best, but the basic Thomas & Friends track & trains sets are also good. Big trucks to transport things, and diggers and tractors and fire engines to push about are also very good.

5) Any toys that involve fitting things into other things: shape sorters, simple puzzles and cups that fit inside each other are another type of toy that are both educational and fun.

6) Musical instruments: mostly percussion, drums, rattles, bells and xylophones teach about rhythm, sound and melody. If there is an adult that can play something, even better - the toddler can accompany Daddy playing guitar or Mummy on the piano with his "rhythm section". Dancing, swaying and other forms of movement improve gross motor skills, balance and co-ordination.

7) ONE good piece of keybord-banging software. My all-time favourite is Jump Ahead Baby, now sadly out of production but if you can get a copy second -hand or from old stock, do - it's the best I have ever seen!

And most importantly, have fun!

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