Toy Ideas
Every holiday season TV stations and newspapers create a toy list. My experience has been they are supporting advertisers and they also push expensive electronic toys. One year the cheapest toy was $75.00. As an early childhood specialist I find most of these expensive battery driven, media fed toys inappropriate for young children. Therefore I have created a toy list for young children that meet the following goals:
- Toys are interactive
- Toys motivate children to problem solve
- Toys may be used in more than one way
- Children have the power to change the toy as they play
- The toy builds in nurturing instincts
- The toy broadens the child's world
- Books give children language and imagery to think about as they fall asleep and or just sit quietly daydreaming
- Musical DVDs give children melodies to hum and words to sing as they interact with others; wait patiently for adults and as they gaze about the room before falling asleep
- Some toys are tools that help children work on their gross and fine muscle development: balls, pens, jump ropes, riding toys, chalk, climbers and legoes
- Toys that develop creative abilities, present in all the babies, are important too. These types of toys are represented by a variety of different types of toys; they include but are not limited doll house type toys, art materials, dress up trunks and books
This list supports the American Association of Pediatrics position that no TV or other media-electronic products for children under two. Period. This is not the statement of one doctor or even a statement representing the views of one clinic. This is the statement made by the Association of Pediatrics---Television is not good for the brain development of young babies. What TV and other media products do is screw up the brain waves. You may be a person who has watched TV all your life and your response may be, “Well, it didn't hurt me!” How do you know? How much clearer might your thinking be if you hadn't focused so much on TV? Would you have gotten better grades? Would you have interacted more effectively with others if you hadn't watched so much TV? No one knows. We only know that brain research has proven that TV and other media products are not in the best interest of young babies up to two years of age. After two, until age eight, TV and media products should be limited to no more than one hour a day.
What is a toy?
A toy is something a child selects to play with on his/her own. It is like “Play”. Play occurs when a child determines what, who, where, how and when he/she will play. A toy is something a child selects to enhance play. For a child a “toy” may be a cardboard box, a ball, a game he/she has selected, dishes, dress-ups, bikes, cars, trucks, trains, bikes, dolls, etc.. A toy helps children progress the plots of their play. Toys become props when children have dishes and dolls. Toys help children understand parts of their world as they move trucks and cars about between stop signs and other traffic signals.
The best toy is a toy that a child may make an impact upon. It is not static. An electronic train, run by batteries, that goes round and round, may initially catch a child's interest---BUT, children soon grow tired of these toys because their actions never vary. Children need toys they can impact upon and change to fit the plots they create as they interact with other children and adults. So, blocks and doll houses, clays and pen and paper, bikes and big-wheels, balls and dolls, logos, Lincoln logs, sand tables, water tables, gardening tools, dress-up clothes, and small animals with blocks are all worth the money. The list is endless with Brio trains and village toys and small kitchens and tool benches (With real tools). Clays are a great medium; clay tools help kids make more complex objects but really all kids really need are their hands as they mold the clay into fun shapes and useful bowls and cups: small rolling pins and blunt or plastic kitchen knives do enhance their creative thinking.
Almost any toy can be created from a cardboard box. All the adult needs is a cardboard box, or boxes plus a matt knife and some duck tape and let their imagination roam. A child can draw their ideas onto the box and the adult can use the matt knife and cut out doors and windows and tunnels. Never ever give a matt knife to a child or youngster.
Some toys are for loving: and thus teddy bears and other stuffed animals and dolls of all kinds help a child learn to “care” for something. These attachments are very healthy. There is some research to indicate that two year olds who are very attached to a blanket or other inanimate object such as a stuffed bear make more compassionate teen-agers than those who did not have this early experience.
For Babies:
- An interactive adult: an adult or older child who will play and sing and talk to the baby
- Books: hard cardboard books a child may hold and chew on
- Balls that move when pushed
- Peek Tents (see sample)
- Textures laid out on the floor that are safe to roll and crawl on
- Music with strong rhythms
- Simple rhythm instruments
- Pillows to push and lay against
- Plexiglass mirrors to see themselves reflected
- As they get older baskets to cart things around the house
- Boxes to climb into
- Stacking boxes made of sturdy cardboard and plastic
For Toddlers:
- An interactive adult that responds to their creative actions
- An interactive adult to play “run”
- Books to hold and carry about
- Riding toys
- Pull toys (This motivates them to walk)
- Set of simple dishes and pots and pans
- Large rolling trucks and cars “that go”
- Sidewalk chalk, (with supervision)
- Toys that make noise
- Magazine: such as Baby Bug and Latter Ladybug
- Baskets for carrying things about
- A soft doll with solid eyes
- Large crayons and blank paper (Put a piece of plastic on the table or floor first)
This list supports the American pediatrics' position that children over two watch very little television or play with electronic toys. The guideline states no more than 1-2 a week. Enhance your child's brain development. Do not allow long intense focused hours of TV watching before the age of 8. And even after eight, children should watch very little TV. The positive side of this is that if you have kept the TV and other media products from your child, by the time they are eight they will have little interest in TV because they will have developed other interests. Protect your child's brain waves development: allow the brain to work with hands on materials designed for young children.
Personal Note: It has been amazing to watch my sixteen-month-old granddaughter request books for interactions with her parents and me. She says, “Book” or “Bookie Book” and then will sit for up to 45 minutes as we read book after book. In the morning when her Daddy drops her off for child-care, he cannot leave until he has read 3-5 books to her, ending with a book called My Daddy. Lately, at 18 months, she takes a book, leans back into the sofa pillows and reads to herself out loud. She holds the book correctly and turns the pages and as she “reads” her voices changes. She is not “reading”, but she is “reading”. Get it!
For Preschoolers:
- Books of all kinds: To be read and to just look out Children's magazines such as Ranger Rick etc. Bin of drawing tools and papers of all sizes.
- Art basket: Glues, writing tools, scissors, and stapler
- Clays: Play Doh®, cornmeal dough. Fema and when possible Actual modeling clay.
- Outside toys along with a friendly encouraging adult to give the child time Outside so the toy gets used: Bikes, big-wheels, wagons, riding toys, big wheels
- Legos: One of the world's best toys for developing small muscles; Make it a Lego gifts at holiday and gift giving times and have everyone send some; don't just try to duplicate the toy on the box, but let the child have oodles of logos to be their own inventers.
- Blocks: unit blocks for building and then manipulative such as logos, bristle Blocks and other small building toys. Add cars, zoo animals and farm animals for the children to use to support this play.
- Puppets and puppet stages: The DVD Tell It with Puppets so children may learn how to use puppets as they should be used: in performance.
- Dollhouses: toys that give an environment that is Changeable: examples such as the farm, garage, and castle
- Dolls: Also equipment such as beds and little kitchens. (Fashion is bringing back pressed clothes so a toy ironing board is fun again.)
- Real tools and a place to use them under the supervision of a caring adult
- A box of collage materials and glue and paper
Good toys are toys that are usable over long periods of time; a toy a child may use and put away and come back to later. Plain paper and crayons are superior to coloring books for children under 8. Children over 8 often like the complicated line drawings as they have mastered the "stay in the line” concept.
Sewing baskets with something to sew like puppets, book marks, small doll clothes, embroidering tee towels for the family, sew on collages are all items that are used sometimes, not daily.
Caution: Try to remember that just because one child in the family likes one toy another may not. Siblings will often want a toy their brother or sister received, just because of that point, the sibbling got it. It is important to talk to kids and siblings about their interests and that there is “X” amount of money for toys. They need to think about what interests them and not just duplicate a toy for themselves out of jealously or a sense of envy. It is important to be “just” and “fair” with kids. I once watched a family with two sisters in a dollhouse store. The grandmother bought the older girl a dollhouse. The younger girl starting begging for one too. She was told kindly and firmly that she had never shown any interest in dollhouses until this moment. Her interests had always been horses. But, if in a few months, when it was her birthday, if she truly wanted a dollhouse instead of something to do with horses, she could make that choice, and they would return to this shop.
Another story with less than happy ending. This mother had two sons, three years apart. And every time she bought one child something she bought a duplicate for the other, because they fussed. Therefore, each child had many things they did not want or like and often not what they wanted because the funds had been spent on the horrible “equal” game. There is equal and then there is equal. What is important is to be “fair” and “just”.
Another interesting story involved a family where the children never saw TV, and never visited Santa Claus. At gift giving times like birthdays and Christmas the parents selected toys based on the interests of the children. Their children showed interest in ideas as they played with friends at preschool. The little girl never played with dolls and had no interest in them. She loved legoes and drawing materials. When she was in the 6th grade she asked her mother for a Cabbage Patch doll because literally everyone had one. Her mother made her one, that the child never played with; yet at school she could talk about her doll when dolls were the topic of conversation with her playmates.
Parents should resist the “gimme” and buy toys that reinforces their children's interests. Parents should not give into the marketing tricks and buy toys that will wear out their welcome in a few short days.
Parents should think about what were their favorite toys as a child and why. All the children in my family loved to go to Grandma's and play with the dress-up box. All these fun clothes and shoes came from the thrift shops.
As a parent it is ok to have values and say you will not allow a boy to have a gun or violent toy and it is also ok to say you don't want your little 4 year old to have a Barbie!
Toys speak volumes about the values of a family! What do the toys in your child's toy box say about your values?