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Children learn through active exploration. Children need to experiment and test their theories. For example, a child might decide through playing with cylinder shaped blocks that when placed on their side, blocks roll. The child attempts the same thing with a rectangular block and needs to change his or her theory. Some toys are close ended and there is only one right way to use them. Some toys based on television shows and movies simply result in imitative play. Children copy what they have seen the characters do and fail to use their imaginations. The most important educational toys are ones that allow children to create, explore and use their imaginations in a flexible way. Parents and teachers should ask questions and make comments to extend children's thinking, such as, "How did you get those gears to turn? Can you think of another way to do that? How can you make a word using those letters? etc." Expensive, electronic toys are not necessary. Keep it simple.

The following is a list of simple educational toys every household should include:

1. Magnetic letters for the refrigerator or on a cookie sheet. You might need 2 so there are multiples of each letter.
(Parents can model spelling simple words and children's names and discuss the sounds letters make)

2. Simple building blocks (Parents can encourage math by talkign about how many blocks children have, or who has more or less. Children also learn geometry as they explore the shapes of the blocks.)

3. Legos or Duplos (You can make a math game by adding a large lawn die. You add the number of pieces to your creation that appears on the die.)

4. Paper, crayons, markers, stencils and a model of the alphabet. Have an area set up where children can write and draw. Fold paper in half and staple it together to make blank books.

5. Art supplies: Sidewalk chalk, Paint (Especially red, blue and yellow. Children can mix colors. Parents can ask, "How did you make purple?"), Play dough (Use rolling pins, potato mashers, alphabet cookie cutters.) Children explore the relationship between what they do to the play dough and how it looks.

6) Items for water and sand play: funnels, water wheels or sand wheels, tubing

7) Science materials and activities: Gears, pulleys, ramps, planting seeds and charting their growth, scales, rulers, tape measures etc. See the book More Than Magnets by Sally Moomaw and Brenda Hieronymus.

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