by Shelley Kishpaugh

Created on: April 17, 2009

Choosing the best toys for your child seems complicated, but in reality, a little common sense is really quite useful. It is important to remember that there is no one toy or game that can give your child an "edge" over other children. What children really need more than the latest and greatest gadget is a variety of playthings that encourage an interest in exploring their world.

Before you run over to the toy store and blow through a bunch of money buying things that your child will either play with a few times and then ignore, or buy toys your child will use for some other purpose than the manufacturer's intention, think about the following information.

1. Simple toys are best.

Children can learn a lot about their world with things you already have around your house. A few pots, pans, Tupperware and wooden spoons can serve the purpose of learning about adult roles, can help develop imagination and can show a child spatial relationships as he or she attempts to put objects of varying size into each other.

Sticks, rocks, dirt and water are also endlessly educational. A child can pretend a good variety of things from having a restaurant that serves mud pies and stick soup to building little villages and decorating them with leaves. A child will learn about the physics of the natural world by observing first hand the properties of water, sand, wood and other objects. Give a child a small pool, bathtub or sink of water and some spoons, cups, bowls and funnels and he or she will be worlds ahead when she gets to studying physics in school. Math concepts also become second nature if a child has an array of simple objects that he can use to sort, count and add together. Rocks that a child has collected work perfectly for this activity. Most of the time, you won't even notice that your child is learning, but by the time they get to adding and subtracting in school, the conceptual groundwork is laid, and the child simply has to figure out how numerals represent a concept that he has been experimenting with for his whole life.

2. Buy toys thoughtfully.

Most toys on the market are very specific in their play value. You want to avoid anything that can only be played with one or two ways, or anything that is obvious as far as how it SHOULD be played with. Toys that dictate their own use are limiting to the imagination. You will want to shop for toys that can be used for a million and one things. The best playthings in this category are things like dolls, plastic figurines, blocks,

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>