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and also developing their building skills with simple explanation.

Card games and board games.

These games help a child to learn to share. They are also very good at reinforcing numbers, as a player soon finds out the value of higher numbers against lower numbers. Many of the board games available today are also instructional and require logic. Monopoly is a first rate example and allows a child to understand how to earn money and what use to put it to as a strategy. These reinforce ideas within the child's mind which will always remain with them and should be encouraged.

Computer games.

While many parents wish to limit the amount of time their child spends on a computer, there is an educational side to games. These teach co-ordination skills and concentration, and perhaps the best use of these is to provide competition between child and parent, or child and sibling, using the lesson of sharing so that the child appreciates that they cannot simply switch off and play. Competition also teaches them incentive.

Dolls and cars.

These are traditional games, but in their own way, teach children social skills. A child can be encouraged to dress their dolly and to look after it. Boys can form collections of cars and in doing so, also learn about the different makes and models.

All toys have educational value because that's where children excel. Put a child alone in a room full of wooden blocks, and that child will create something. Give a child a pegboard with round and square holes and pegs which slot into the right slots, and they learn recognition of different shapes and forms. The child's curiosity makes every toy they ever play with a learning tool, and those which are labeled as educational are really not that different from standard toys. Whatever the toy is, add a child to the agenda, and that toy will become educational, as a child's imagination will make it so.

Learn more about this author, Rachelle de Bretagne.
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