Child's Play - Educational Baby Toys are Beneficial For Good Early Learning

Today’s parents can be forgiven for feeling overwhelmed by the huge range of toys available for their new baby. Immediately after the Second World War, toys were limited and children often played with simple wooden toys or household objects such as spoons or old cotton reels.

Now we can chose from a perplexing range of more traditional toys made of wood or plastic to high tech toys incorporating flashing lights, sounds, electronics and computers.

So lets begin by asking ourselves what toys are for:

• First they entertain a child and give them pleasure
• Second (and arguably more important) they are educational tools and help the child to develop to their full potential

In practice, toys or objects that children enjoy playing with usually meet the educational requirement too. In other words children are preprogrammed to seek out learning opportunities and a normal, healthy baby is born hungry to learn and be stimulated.

A new born baby is rather like a sponge absorbing every bit of sensory data around it and then processing it in order to make sense of the new world it has been born into.

Each of the five senses are important in helping it to comprehend its new environment and develop cognitively, physically and socially.

Toys are not enough however. To maximise the learning benefits the child needs other people to interact with. A child left alone with a simple object like a spoon will suck it, feel it, shake it or touch it to different parts of their body.

However if an adult interacts with the baby, for example tickling the child with the spoon or play acting with the spoon the child will demonstrate a much wider range of involvement by, for example, giggling, laughing or waving their arms in the air. In other words, toys are not enough. To gain the full benefit the child must have people to play with.

So what sort of toys might be suitable for a baby under a year old? Visual stimulation is important. Children enjoy a range of colours. Moving parts are also good, particularly if they omit a noise when moved.

Babies also learn a lot from touch and combining touch and sight helps them to recognise visually different textures and materials.

If we go back to the spoon example, the baby will see the metal spoon is shiny and feel it is relatively heavy, smooth and cold to the touch. The child will also, sooner or later, place the spoon in its mouth to see how it tastes.

Toys made from a variety of different materials and textures will therefore stimulate and encourage their tactile investigations of the world around them.

Toys that omit sound are also important. Children need to use sound to know what is going on around them. Toys that omit sounds enable them to equate cause with effect (for example, shaking a rattle) and help them to locate objects in space by sound. Sound can also be soothing and comforting.

However there is no substitute for the voice of a carer or parent. Even if you can’t hold a note, you singing a lullaby is worth far more than a professional singer on TV or a CD. A range of educational toys is great but the magic ingredient is a thoughtful, caring adult to help the baby get the most out of them!

• Balls consisting of different sizes, colours and textures
• A range of plastic and wooden bricks of various colours, shapes and sizes
• Picture cards for language and colour
• Wooden spoons, saucepans and other objects to create noise
• A toy xylophone for musical appreciation
• Boxes to put objects in and take objects out

The bottom line is that educational baby toys need not be expensive or high tech. Children can learn and develop properly using relatively inexpensive learning toys and household objects.

The interaction of a loving, committed adult is often more beneficial for the child that playing with a range of expensive toys alone.