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The Importance of Play

 

Adult skills are learned in childhood, through play 

Childhood is a magical time, with new skills appearing almost every day. Our first achievement is to turn towards our mother and to learn to suckle. New skills follow almost daily, as we focus on our parents and learn to reach out and to grasp. We as adults can encourage these skills and give the child the very best start in life. Toys need not be expensive as even simple, well-made toys will enhance the learning process. Indeed, a handful of cotton reels and a few empty yogurt cartons will teach a baby so many things. However the joy of simple, well made, colourful wooden toys is there for all to see. Wooden toys also last a long time and are easily mended with a spot of wood glue, should they get damaged.

Problem Solving and Reasoning
Numbers are fun! Children need to learn to apply and develop their basic understanding of numbers and mathematical ideas. Numbers play a vital part in all our lives and it is never too early for a child to start to grasp the relationship between numbers. It is however very important that children learn in a fun and interactive way and continue to do so with regular stimulation.

Encouraging a child’s numerical skills will encourage creative thinking and mathematical reasoning 

Children enjoy discovering their higher thinking skills through active play. They learn to problem solve and that it is possible to solve most problems in more than one way. Leaning problem solving through play will give a child life-long skills and increase their capacity for creative thought.

Activities that engage the child with a friend, parent or teacher also help to develop the child’s spatial awareness. This is why puzzles, bricks, wooden shapes and construction toys are so valuable as they offer a range of shapes and patterns at an early age.

Spacial and Shape Awareness
Adults will naturally communicate with the child while playing with blocks, bricks and puzzles. For example, “I am going to put this green piece on top of the red piece”, “This lion fits in that space”. This encourages curiousity about colours and shape awareness. Others examples may be “This tower has seven bricks in it”. “This tower is taller than the other tower”. We have used all the square blocks”. “The lion will not fit in the elephant space”. “Shall we see if this fits”?

Small children are also perfectly capable of issuing instructions to mum or dad by saying “Put car in garage”, or “Put lion in again”.

Playing with building toys and puzzles are excellent ways of introducing spatial concepts in an easy and natural way. Wooden toys in particular, with their warm touch, attractive colours and gently rounded shapes are especially appealing and visually stimulating. Children very readily absorb knowledge about shape, size, patterns and texture from wooden toys.

Numbers and calculation
A child’s number sense increases rapidly through play. Learning is not hard work to a child and the relationship between numbers builds naturally with the right toys and games.

The basic building blocks of numbers, such as number constancy (i.e. calculation results results are always the same, however simple) are obvious to us but have to be learnt by a child. Understanding basic number concepts are an integral part of later understanding and life skills in calculation and mathematics.

Academic research shows us that creating natural opportunities for number play can help the child’s development many years later. 

Active early encouragement of the understanding of numbers will also encourage logical thinking and problem solving skills. This can go a long way towards academic success in later life, in mathematics as well as general subjects.

Motor Skills
Children need to be able to develop their fine motor skills at an early age. Toys that require concentrated touch will help the child develop a good pen or pencil grip many years later. It is important that a steady flow of stimulous is available, with toys appropriate to the childs age being available. 

The fine motor skills that we take for granted are learned at an early age, as the child moves their hands, wrists, arms and fingers in relation to each other. These skills separate us from most other mammals, as our opposing thumbs enable us to pick up tools, grip a pen or pencil between fingers and thumb and use a spoon, then a knife and fork.

Encourage a child’s fine motor skills
Most toddlers need little encouragement to try something new, which is why they are so delightful. By offering brief periods of encouragement with stimulating toys (or even a few cotton reels), most toddlers will develop their fine motor skills very rapidly. Provide them with wooden toys and puzzles that feel natural to them and they will quickly surprise you.

Just make sure that you regularly change the activities to build on the motor skills learned and to encourage new learning and development.

Cause and Effect
It is vital that children learn the relationship between cause and effect. Every action will have a reaction, which is an important part of experiemntal play during a small childs development. Most of our toys will reinforce this concept.

Repitition, as with puzzles and activity toys will enable a child to learn that the same action causes the same reaction. A valuable lesson in the childs development.

Hand Eye Coordination
Learning hand eye coordination at an early age is very important. This will help a child later, when they learn to catch a ball, read and write and dress themselves. It is therefore crucial that ther child has ample opportunities to practice this. Well designed toys teach hand eye coordination in a subtle way, through play.




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