Knex Building Sets and Playing Card Games Truly Are Educational Toys
Special things can happen with children and their toys. Growing up, I can’t remember a girl who didn’t own a Barbie or a boy who didn’t run all over the backyard wielding action figures to defeat evil powers. Magnetic building sets were scattered all over the floors of every playroom I came into as a child, including my own. We would invent incredible things with those toy building sets; towering buildings for our Barbie doll or stuffed toys to live in, a store for them to shop in; the things we could create was only limited by our imaginations. While these types of toys don’t perfectly fit into the category of educational toys, they most certainly do teach children valuable lessons.
All toys can be important to children, even those that parents may not at first believe to be educational toys. This is as true today as it was 30 years ago when I sat playing classic board games with my sister. It is through play that children learn best, and they develop their imaginations and their critical thinking skills. While parents may think that only learning toys are able to to teach a child anything, that would be a mistake. Actually, most toys are educational toys when you understand that a child learns from free play.
Board games, while supplying a lot of entertainment, also work on cultivating a child’s reasoning talents as well as coping skills. Everyone doesn’t win when we play strategy games, and at times losing at something is just as necessary for a child to learn as winning is. When one player wins and the other loses in a board game, one player is humbled while the other, hopefully, learns to be a polite winner. With the assistance of a focused parent, children will expand these skills. So popular are certain board games that they are now being made in ways that they can be played in the car. Travel games may not be as stimulating as the original board games, but it sure keeps a child occupied during the trip!
Since the 1940’s, parents and children have spent hours building their relationships over scale model sets . The wonderfully colorful blocks in a Lego set bring forward the very best in a child’s imagination, and keep them busy for days. A wonderful thing about scale model sets is that just one set could create many of different items, from a animal to a fire station. Over the years, Lego sets have grown to where there are now sets specifically for girls, such as the Belville line. Logically, boys love Lego sets like Bionicles or Star Wars. But youngsters can learn ingenuity and imagination through Lego sets, and that’s what is really important.
Need more proof of the value of Lego sets as an educational toy? Studies show that children develop new neural connections when working with scale model sets . By simply playing with their Lego set, children also learn spatial concepts, cause-and-effect, and fine motor skills. This is a wonderful way to learn!
Filed under Family | Comment (0)Used Kids Furniture Has a Story You Can Add To
Embedded within the walls of our used baby furniture, are stories and dreams waiting to come alive again. Most of us have something stored somewhere from childhood that we have kept all these years for reasons that are often personal and sentimental. Sometimes, this precious heirloom gets put away in an attic, or crawl space, and it rarely gets taken out or dusted off.
Perhaps some of the most special memories from our past lie in our childhood. It wasn’t until recently, that I realised how beautiful and powerful an object can be. It was my niece’s second birthday and she received used baby furniture from my best friend. She simply reached into her crawl space, dusted the gift off, and presented it to my niece. A gift from the heart, that didn’t cost a penny.
How could someone give used kids furniture as a baby gift you might ask? Well, I think it’s the term “secondhand” that more often than not makes people scoff. However, the reality is that many used infant furniture items are in good condition and it’s the best way to buy name brand furnishings that you otherwise might not have been able to afford. In this particular instance, money was not a factor. My best friend could have gone to any local toy store and bought one of the hundreds of baby items to fill my niece’s room. Instead, she chose to bring the rocking-duck.
The rocking-duck is a piece of used kids furniture that is rich in history. My best friend grew up in a house where her parents were at all times taking in sick babies. They would nurture and care for these helpless infants until a loving family would come and adopt them. When I saw my best friend take the rocking-duck out of her car, I was flooded with memories.
My best friend’s grandpa made this for her because like so many of the children her parents cared for, she too was adopted and it was her “welcoming” gift. Painted a pale yellow color with an orange bill, it had a leather seat belt that my best friend’s mom made from an old leather purse of hers. When her mom passed away unexpectedly a few years ago, this special baby item was put away. This piece of used infant furniture didn’t seem to have a place anymore, until now.
This piece of used kids furniture carried with it memories of childhood, but more importantly a legacy of love. When my niece saw the rocking-duck her eyes lit up. My sister looked at me a little puzzled, not really sure what to say. I looked at my best friend and smiled. I am sure that the rocking-duck will be around for a long time. It will travel from one loving family to the next and will sit patiently waiting for the next child to hop in and rock until their heart’s content.
More importantly, however, are the memories that are relived and the memories that are created all because my best friend went into her crawl space and pulled out her used infant furniture.
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