Educational toys: Learning by Playing
Toys are important for every child: to play with, but also as a tool to learn to discover and understand the world. As a result, more and more toys are coming onto the market, or you can check https://medium.com/@playtime to stimulate the development of certain skills. These kinds of toys can play an important role in education.
Learning through play is becoming increasingly popular. With the use of educational toys, cognitive, motor, and social skills can be developed and promoted. The range of educational toys is now enormous. As a teacher, it is therefore important to make a good choice. Pay close attention to the functions of the toy and what skill it stimulates. To make it easy for you, we have listed three important skills:
1. Cognitive Skills
Educational toys are designed to stimulate a child’s cognitive skills and to develop them as optimally as possible. Think of skills such as reasoning, math, reading, writing, planning, and taking initiatives. When playing with educational toys, these functions are constantly used. Counting the number of blocks, devising and executing a building plan, reading objects, taking initiatives to achieve self-made goals, and understanding certain functions that toys have are examples of cognitive skills that are promoted when playing with educational toys.
2. Motor Skills
Motor development can be divided into two types: gross and fine motor skills. Gross motor skills consist of moving and coordinating the entire body. Fine motor skills are mainly about the movement in the hands. Playing stimulates both the gross and fine motor movements so that a child understands how his or her body works. Educational toys such as construction toys (blocks and boards), figures and sets, craft toys, and puzzles ensure that the number of gross and fine motor movements are optimally applied.
3. Social Skills
Social skills are important in building and maintaining relationships. In primary education, therefore, a lot of attention is paid to it. A child can develop this skill by working together and sharing. You can also encourage this with the help of educational toys. For example, children can build something together or solve a puzzle. And by playing together with play figures and sets, there is more interaction between the children. That promotes social skills.
