Toy Fire Trucks

Everything a baby encounters in the first months of life can be described as education toys. Babies enter the world with no experience and no exposure to the new world around them. Each time one of their five senses is aroused they are learning something about their environment. Choosing an education toy for a baby is almost as simple as exposing them to any new experience in life.

Education toys should focus on the senses of sight, hearing, smell, touch or taste. This is the way babies connect with their world in the early days of their life. They have no communication skills yet, other than crying, so everything they come in contact with expands their world.

For new babies cloth books and stuffed animals will engage their sense of touch. These items require no interaction but still allow the baby to learn about his world. Mobiles and spinning toys mounted above their cribs will provide a focal point for their eyes as they explore their world, looking for broader horizons.

As babies grow their senses expand as well. Balls and other soft toys without sharp edges give them a chance to begin developing eye and hand coordination as they grasp, hold, push, throw or shake toys within their reach. In these early stages of life education is not a matter of facts and figures, it is more about discovering what everything looks like and how it feels.

Books of nursery rhymes and children’s stories can be read to babies even before there is any discernible understanding on their part. Hearing the voice of a parent or other caring adult will build a sense of security for the baby. At the point where words begin to take on meaning the baby will already be ahead of the game as he was hearing words and ideas from the earliest time of his life.

Babies approaching the first year of life become much more interactive. They will start to take part in playing with others. Balls, blocks and other toys can be handed back and forth. Simple games geared to the level of a baby will train him to react to his environment. Placing large puzzle pieces in a puzzle board will develop coordination skills.

The world is one big educational experience for babies in the first year of life. Education toys for babies do not need to be expensive or elaborate.
By:Erica A Brooks
About the Author:
Erica is a mother of two who enjoys sharing helpful tips that help couples to save time and money while growing their family. She believes that learning should be fun for kids of all ages. For more education toys ideas for your baby visit FunEducationToys.com education toys store.

When do human beings play?

They play at every stage of life, because playing is natural and relaxing – every human loves to play. Playing is the most natural activity that a baby goes through. In fact, one can use the right set of educational toys at the right periods of childhood to see a spurt of growth in intelligence, knowledge, creativity and cognitive powers in the child. These attributes remain ingrained inside the child for the rest of their lives.

Benefits of Playing

Using the right toys would take the art to perfection reaping maximal benefits for your child.

1) Play begins at birth – don’t we all know that? Playing begins naturally and ought to remain natural for the very initial phase of life.

2) The baby’s major activity during the entire babyhood is also play. In fact, babyhood is when a person is at his/her receptive best. If you arm the baby with knowledge and education at this stage of life, then the baby will start learning it and keep growing in quickly terms of knowledge. Babyhood is a golden period of life – dig all the gold that your baby has inside at this phase. Studies suggest that babies exposed to educational toys early enough learn quicker in school and are the better performers, and later they become more mature and effective individuals as adults. In later babyhood and also early childhood, they get deeper into cognitive involvements. They take to games as making songs and rhymes. They start understanding and respecting games with rules over random games. They start understanding that not every game will have an immediate result – some games take more time to produce results compared to others.

3) Childhood is the longest learning phase of a person’s life. Pre-school, early-school childhood and late-school childhood – each of the levels have their own physical, intellectual and social demands. Make sure that you expose the child to the right set of games at each of the stages that balance the development activities of the body and the mind. Each of these stages call for a different set of requirements. Cross-check with your toy vendor that you are getting the toy for the right age group. If in doubt, get clarified. This is about your child’s future, so don’t take chances. The educational toys tuned towards wholesome growth of children at different stages clearly demarcate the appropriate sets of toys for each age group and the nature of growth those toys would propel. As a result, you get to easily understand and monitor that your child is experiencing the right experience of growing up.

4) During adolescence, the young adults still grow in their minds. The intellectual growth part now takes the foremost seat, especially during early adolescence. This is the phase of life where your kid will experience a tremendous shift in their mindsets that involves developing their careers and making choices. If they keep continuing playing deeper intellectual games and relaxing games, then they implicitly keep honing their inherent sharpness and injecting the much-desired peace into their minds. This translates into a great positive in the longer run. Later as young adults, your kids would either go into higher studies or into their own profession. It is the adolescence experience and knowledge that is the most recent one they have, and that is the one with the biggest impact in their mindsets. If you get to inject the right set of educational toys for their play during adolescence, then that would leave a direct impact on their mindset and would reflect in their career choices.

5) And adults play for relaxation till they grow old – a natural form of evolution of a human life.

As you see, play is important, more so for babies in late babyhood right up to kids in their adolescence. The childhood intellect, cognition and knowledge develop with play. Physical and mental growths are balanced. This can shape up the entire career and life of your kid. Using educational toys with proper discipline thus becomes critical.

As a parent, you would help the child a lot by exposing your children to a set of toys that will make their lives fun and will also help take them forward in their lives. Make your child play, and one day you shall enjoy that you had brought your child in a new world of wonderful colors and flavors.
By:Judy Hansen
About the Author:
The author is a mother of 2 young kids. Her kids simply love wooden educational toys from Melissa and Doug Toys. She is also an advocate for teaching babies how to read and had much success for her own children at a very young age.