During playtime, children develop learning strategies, critical thinking skills and a foundation for life-long competencies and interests. Watching your kids at play clearly reveals that learning is a developmental process. At six months or six years, childrens days are well spent, hard at work – at play.
As a parent, it is your responsibility to search for the most educational and developmentally appropriate toys for your children, in a wide range of categories. The job may be easier by looking at toys from several perspectives. From the vantage point of your children, they need to match their interests and ages. From your end, factors to consider are your values, principles – and the family budget.
When making a purchase, consider if the toy has star potentials. Take into account consistency of play value and whether the toy offers an extension of your childs creative and imaginative bent. A good toy encourages a child to experiment and explore without limit!
When looking for appropriate kids toys, it helps to keep the following things in mind:
? It is important to remember that boys and girls do differ in toy preferences and yet they can enjoy many of the same products. Playthings need to fit developing mental skills. They should foster awareness, appreciation and involvement in creative processes.
? Toys can help children better understand their neighbors. They can help understand and respect similarities and differences in todays world.
? A toy is quality and staying power is determined by its ability to withstand active use. Remember to choose toys with broad appeal and are not only worth the investment, but your child plays with them again and again.
? A company that guarantees a products safety establishes important consumer credibility. Labeling needs to be easily understood and should include age grading and valuable information. Kids toys should be technically well produced.
? There are toys that can help children understand new concept or develop new skills. Your Child is understanding of wildlife, science or the environment can be enriched. Toys which encourage and support physical activity and development contribute to a childs health and growth. Consider if the toy is innovative and original. If the toy does something familiar, but in a different way, or whether it offers something never seen before, then it is interesting.
With the variety of choices that kids have today, they have more exposure to really learn a lot and grow. You as a parent should keep your children invested in worthwhile toys. There is a lot to be gained by participating in play, imagination – and talk.
Opportunities during which your children can lead, cooperate and feel successful now become powerful vehicles for socialization. The play abilities children have formed will become the social and emotional underpinnings of school readiness, as well as contribute to behavior management and self-control. Kids toys must not only enhance a childs play experiences, but be fun, too! It is a tall order, but these tangible, yet elusive qualities are essential in all childrens playthings.
what's a good toy dog with kids, one with few health problems
my girls are in 1st and 3rd grade. they want a puppy. we have a city house, small yard. i think a toy breed would be good. I hope for just three things: (a) not yappy, (b) easy to housetrain, and (c) not a lot of health problems. I always heard about some really cute breed – that has like 15 genetic diseases. NOT that. Any advice on my three requirements?
Bichon-Poodle (mentioned below) actually can be called PooBich or BichPoo ! and has a website. http://www.dogbreedinfo.com/bichpoo.htm
My daughter loves her dolls, play house, pretend food and her vanity. She also loves her trucks, playdoh and digging in the dirt. While she does have alot of girly toys- most of them were gifted to her from other people. We have bought her some toys but really only things she has asked for in the past. I dont buy her gender specific toys becuase shes a girl, I buy them becuase she shows interest in them. When our son is born and if he wants to play with dolls he can, if he wants to play with trucks thats fine too.'
EDIT- shes 2 1/2
take 90% of them away and put them in the garage. they have far too many things, and are getting confused with all the choices, so thay choose nothing.
if they get bored with one toy remove it and replace it with another
Good luck
RR
My personal feeling is that children should be allowed to choose from a variety of 'gendered' toys and let play with whichever the prefer. Of course this might be a bit difficult if you are the parent of a boy who plays with dolls, but that's just human nature.
Gendered toy choice is an area on of my gender studies lecturers had a big problem with facing up to. She was convinced it was about socialisation; If only she had seen some of the research that has been done since then. One interesting paper found that monkeys showed gendered preferences for toys, suggesting that there is something innate about boys prefering guns and girls preferring dolls:
"..our finding that male and female vervet monkeys show similar preferences for these toys as boys and girls do, suggests that what makes a 'boy toy' and a 'girl toy' is more than just what society dictates"
Why would this be? "…the toys preferred by [male monkeys] – the ball and the car – are described as objects with the ability to be used actively and be propelled through space… [and] afford greater opportunities for rough and active play… On the other hand, females may have evolved preferences for object color". I am sure they had a few boy and girl monkeys who chose atypically too.
In general people shouldn't be forced to do things they are not inclined to, and children's toys is a good example of this. Thus forcing them to choose even from only gender-neutral toys is restrictive, and I would suggest ia detrimental to their natural development. As adults we should be able to be mature enough to accept difference in others, and this applies to our children too.
there called crazy bones still got some
use to collect a whole bunch of them
i totally have that, the orchestra ball? my son loves it. it plays some of the more well known ones, i dont know the names but theyre recognizable.
I used to play with Merlin, it was the red box with all the buttons and multi-games, oh fun times…Skip Bo and hula hoops, pogo sticks, roller skates…A lot are coming out again though, carebears, cabbage patch dolls….
My kids are older now but when they were little I would not let them near those toys. Too many sick kids going through there. We would bring a toy and books from home if I thought the wait would be long. People are saying it's cruel not to let them play with the toys, to me it's cruel to knowingly expose your child to germs that can make them sick. What's the difference if you bring toys from home? It's not cruel, it's called good parenting.
Kids play with toys because they find them interesting, and they don't know how to do many other things (depending on the child's age).
these are things my kids play with and they are a girl 6 and boy 3.
soccer ball
jr football or foam one might be better
Frisbee
a rubber ball for playing kick ball with bases. you can make ur own bases and the dollar tree did carry them
jump ropes
kid size rakes
plastic t ball
paint, lots of paint and boxes or posters are 2 for a dollar at $ tree
Spray paint a big huge box, let them i mean, and make a play house outta it.
How bout a tent? If not that, they could make a fort using kit chairs and blankets and sheets and stuff
if you have a table, uno and other games without tiny pieces might be good. My daughter loves uno!
horse shoes is fun too, they make them mobile kinds so you can bring them in when your done with them
kites are a $ at the $ tree too
who doesnt like bubbles or bubble blowers? You can get an awesome bubble blower at wal mart for not too much like 10 or 15 dollars and its GREAT LOADS OF FUN
potting soil and seeds is fun too
dont forget the boom box, gotta have tunes outside right?
I hope this helps it was just off the top of my head!
No I haven't but I will admit that I enjoy playing with my kids and their toys. They don't know it but I usually have just as much as they do, lol.
Since I was a 6 YO boy in 1966, I can tell you that my favorite toys were my Tonka Trucks, especially the big fire engine, and my Tinker Toys and Lincoln Logs. It was great fun to build stuff then knock it all down with the trucks.
Well, I have collected quite a few of them over the years and I think could be either or… it depends on how old the boys are. I think they are for the most part, better for collecting, but if you look around at Walmart, they do make matchbox like John Deere toys that would probably be more suitable for playing with than a typical die cast collectible.
My daughter is 15 months, and LOVES books. I have toys everywhere set out in her room but she will sit there for hours looking at her books & wanting me to read her stories.
Cant go wrong with books. So however old they are you can find some to their age group, try pop out books & touchy feel books. Even older kids love that stuff. Scary books & bedtime books I have found 4+ year olds love story books. (Ive been a nanny & a childcare worker previously before I become a Mum)
Hope that helped…
The season for sharing and caring is coming. Have your children consider donating some of their toys they have out grown to a local church. Make sure the toy is in good working order, if it requires batteries put in new ones to show it works properly. Introduce the idea of a donation box of clothes, mittens, hats, scarves, coats as well as their unwanted toys, when you are calm and not using it to threaten to deprive them of their favorite toys. Consider starting the box at the beginning of Nov. when they are thinking about things they have to be thankful for. When the box is heaping full take them to the church that helps out the needy and make sure they explain this is for the local children this church helps.
My son who is now 6 is absolutely enamored with anything that is LEGO. They are reasonably priced and they spend hours playing with them. There are so many different varieties and they really don't outgrow them… ask his DAD!!
He also really enjoys activity books and Eye Spy style books.
Computer games are popular with him as well.
Those are the top three for us! Good luck and Merry Christmas!
Kids toys are different these days – cell phones are the new "walkie-talkies". They play video games of cars, he-man, and GI Joe.
As for the "grow up too fast" argument, there are a few things going on that really don't go well together.
Twelve year olds have more knowledge (as you pointed out) about sex and other adult topics than newlyweds did a few generations back.
At the same time, the children aren't responsible for their actions as they are still children. Unfortunately, parents are limited in their right to discipline their children and many lack discipline themselves.
So, children remain children despite their abundant adult knowledge until long after they should've become adults. The nation is full of 20 year old children, and 12 year old girls dressed like hookers.
What's the solution? Turn off the fking TV and talk to your kids. Teach them responsibility. Be open with them about them becoming adults. Don't close your eyes and mumble abstinence – it isn't reasonable and it doesn't work. Instead, validate their emotions and facilitate their decision making.
a bit of everything. give to goodwill/salvation army, give to friends, give to the "foster closet" (a donation place to benefit foster families) and list it on freecycle
haven't sold anything yet. i figure the most i'd get is 5 bucks and i'd rather give it to someone who is in need.
join freecycle.com…the easiest/fastest way to get rid of your junk. no money exchanged…it's called FREEcycle. but it gets your unwanted stuff out of your place and gets put to good use by someone who wants/needs it.
O I Do !