Parents may not spend a lot of time thinking about the imaginary learning toys they give their children, but maybe they should get started. A closer look at playtime shows that different types of toys stimulate different types of child development.
For children, playtime is more than just fun and games. Playtime gives children a safe way to experience and learn about the real world without all the risks associated with the real world. Playtime is actually productive time that has been shown to build talents, character, social skills, language skills, creativity, emotional strength, intellectual ability, and self-discipline.
To help parents consider the impact of different types of imaginary learning toys and the impact those toys have on child development, here is a list of different learning toys known to encourage imaginary play.
1. Dolls and dollhouses available today can be astonishingly realistic, helping children imitate real life and play with members of their fictional doll family. The emotions and jumps developed during this game time are real. Little girls can become very attached to their dolls as they practice loving and caring for another person.
2. Stuffed toys are excellent tools for teaching imaginative play and role-playing, especially during the toddler years. It is during these years that children begin to play with fantasies where their stuffed toys come to life. Many children develop strong emotional relationships with their stuffed toys, making for a warm and meaningful relationship in their early years.
3. The puppets are designed to facilitate role-playing and acting. Playing with puppets helps children define and explore relationships in a safe environment. Unlike other toys based on established characters, most puppets are based on unfamiliar characters, providing a blank slate for children to use their own imagination to develop and define the character and their relationships with others. .
4. Transportation toys such as cars, trucks, trains and planes allow children to let their imagination run wild on trips across the city or around the world. Transportation learning toys break down geographic boundaries to expand imaginative play to new frontiers. Children can enjoy adventure-filled trips to new places without leaving home.
5. Playing with kitchen and house toys, like an imaginary vacuum cleaner, gives children a greater sense of self-esteem by using the same heavy equipment and doing the same jobs around the house as mom (and dad?).
6. Costumes are the best fantasy toys for role-playing. Costumes like cowboy clothes for boys and ballerina costumes for girls take them right to the fictional kingdom where all their dreams come true.
7. Themed games provide a fictional setting for real world situations such as supermarket cash register, ATM, food games to play and doctor games to play. Theme sets help children understand the world around them and encourage them to learn more about these real-world encounters.
Perhaps the best way for young children to learn is by reading books aloud to them, allowing them to interact and participate in the stories. However, after books, imaginary learning toys promote child development in many different ways.