Tips for choosing toys for child development

Toys or playing are very important for child learning because it is an important key that leads to children’s learning process in the future. Therefore, if parents or caretaker understand and can effectively apply ways of playing or activities with children, their learning and skill development will be better in quality. When children have good founding development suitable with their age, they will be able to effectively apply the gained experiences in future learning.

Playing is a learning activity that stimulates children perception and enables children to involuntarily learn about themselves and other persons. Besides, playing also has effects on development of the brain and the nerve system.

Advantages of Playing

1. Promote child development in all aspects.
2. Promote children’s use of all five senses.
3. Help intellectual development, imagination stimulation, and creativity enhancement.
4. Help development of communication skills, particularly the vocabularies.
5. Build up self confidence
6. Promote good social manners such as sharing, turn taking, co-operation, and flexibility.
7. Promote children’s better self-learning, which leads to success of the performed acts.
8. Promote good metal health and emotion.
9. Help development and promote roles of gender and role playing
10. Help development and promotion of attention and concentration

Playing tools and games for promoting development

• Various sizes of 5-6 pieces of blocks made from wood, plastic, or paper, or Lego toys. Alternatively, soap or milk boxes may be used instead, as they can be piled up placed in a row.

Advantages This is useful for development of skills in picking up, piling up, and placing items in a row. By doing this, hand-using and eye-contact skills are trained. At the same time, the skill of distance adjustment, observation, and comparison of items with different sizes are also practiced.

• Toys that create sounds such as music box, shaking toys, knocking toys, or musical instrument such as keyboard, wooden rhythm clappers, etc.

Advantages To bring attention to music tones from musical instruments for having fun, practicing concentration, and training the uses of hands and fingers in pressing, knocking, or hitting.

• Towing toys such as animal dolls, cars, boats, and trains attached with towing ropes for children to pull the toys.

Advantages Helpful way to practice mobility of the gross motor development in walking or running while pulling the toys around. The movement may be slow or fast depending on capability and interest of each child.

• Sand toys such as plastic spades, spoons, and buckets that are used for playing sand or colored rice and beans.

Advantages Helpful practice for using of hands, fingers, arms, and coordinating function between hands and eyes. Also, social skills such as sharing and turn-taking with other persons are practiced. This kind of toys can also be modified from simple household objects such as spoons, plates, and cups etc.

When choosing toys, parents should also bear in mind about the following concerns:

1. Safety
2. Appropriateness of child’s age and development
3. Interest of the child
4. Cleanness
5. Suitable price
6. Playing methods

Children’s playing should be always under attention of adults. However, children should be openly allowed to try doing things and learn from what they have done. Giving opportunity to children to practice their problem-solving ability by themselves, under adult’s guidance or advice, in order to develop their own self-esteem and values of themselves, which could develop self confidence and good personality later on in the future.