It is no secret that children learn best through playing with toys. And playthings that are fun to play with and that have educational merit are a great combination to enhance your child’s development. But there are so many toys out there, many claiming to be unique educational toys, how do you decide what is best for your child? What are the best children learning toys?
The kind of creative learning toys that your child will respond to best are those that allow your child to discover and encourage their own individual learning style. Some children like to concentrate on one activity and explore all they can around that while others like to have a wide variety of choices so that they can easily move from one to another. For example, a child that likes to concentrate for long periods will probably enjoy a complicated puzzle (appropriate to their age) but a child who gets distracted easily would probably learn more with a range of simpler puzzles that get increasingly difficult.
Most people have a favorite learning style that can usually be divided into four distinct groups: touch (kinesthetic), visual, aural, or logic. And children are no different although it may take some time for their preference to present and in the interim they will use a mixture of learning styles. Babies for example, go through a stage where they learn primarily by touching everything they can and given their mouth is a primary source of sensory information for them this is why they put so many things in their mouths!
If your child likes to learn through touch then toys that are practical and can be handled are going to work well. Learning toys that fit this category include construction toys, finger paints, clay, water play, craft activities,
water toys.
Children are usually very enthusiastic about learning through toys that are visually appealing. Videos, DVDs and CDRom games all cater to your child’s need for visual stimulation. To have maximum educational merit look out for those that encourage interactivity and don’t just present entertainment to be consumed by your child without any active involvement. This interactivity may take the form of simple songs that have actions they can copy or they present concepts or simple experiments that can be replicated at home. Most CDRoms or PC Games require a response in order to play with them so they can be especially good for your child’s development. Make sure you either screen the games yourself first or buy them on the recommendation of someone you trust. Other visual learning toys include books, board games, drawing books, art oriented toys.
Children learn aurally from the moment they are born. They learn voices and sounds and music and eventually words and speech all aurally without any formal learning. Did your child learn to speak early? If yes, then this is probably a good indication that this is a form of learning that they respond well to and will still enjoy. Learning toys that have a sound component will work well – ones that give instructions like speaking toys or audio cds. If you really want to enhance your child’s aural skills then try learning toys that don’t give other visual clues about what needs to be done. For example, my four year old son has a tractor that regularly runs out of gas. He is then instructed to use the red cross shaped key to re-fuel. Activities like that are excellent learning activities because there are several things they need to be able to master – such as colour recognition, dexterity with correctly placing the key in the right place and ability to follow instructions – before they can continue playing.
Other children respond well to learning toys that have a logical pattern to them. Stacking blocks that vary in size allow children to explore things in a logical way, that is, if they want the blocks to stay stacked upright then they need to use the largest block on the bottom and the smallest on top.
If you’re unsure which learning style your child prefers then spend some time observing how they play with their toys and how they respond to visual and aural instructions. You may need to trial a few learning toys to really see where your child’s preferences lie. Once you work out which style they like then you can fully explore the range of educational toys available. However, remember that your child’s preferences for a particular learning style may change over time as they develop so you would be wise to continue offering some toys that cater to other learning styles too.
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