What kind of toys should you buy for your child? Don’t just buy any random adorable plushie stick or squishy squeaky stress ball!
At our kindergarten and child care in Tampines, Genesis Childcare 1989, we have a plethora of toys and tools for the children’s activities in their playgroup, because we understand that some toys are better in providing value in ways that many parents may have overlooked.
When we think of the toys that children play with, we tend to just credit them as tools useful only for the purpose of nurturing a child’s happiness and entertainment. That’s only on the surface. Let us take a deeper look into how some of these toys are actually assisting in your child with the skills needed for healthy growth.
Soft Toys
The first and most common of toys, that some of us may even carry along into our adulthood, are soft toys. Often, they are made in the image of familiar animals, cute little monsters, or even silly anthropomorphic shapes or objects. Not only are they safe and appropriate for the youngest age group, they provide comfort and companionship. Soft toys provide a warm presence for toddlers and older kids alike when parents are not around.
Soft toys give children an intimate outlet for their emotions and expressions as well. Using their imagination, children talk to soft toys. This behaviour assists with their social development while also giving them a sense of responsibility in taking care of another being, just like having a pet would.
Dolls and Action Figures
Dolls for girls, or action figures for boys (it’s okay either way!) assist your child in the same aspects as soft toys. Even more, these are better for other areas of development like their creativity and imagination. Dolls and action figures mostly come with other little items such as clothes, equipment, accessories, etc. which enables your child to act out scenarios and experiment with mixing and matching.
Children can create expansive imaginary civilizations with their toys as the population, where they can actually engage themselves with practising ethics, simulating cooperativity, managing economics or just purely creating storylines. All of these contribute to various skill sets later in life.
Legos
Lego is the biggest name in the toy industry, and for a good reason. As children play with their Lego blocks, they are not just building simple structures, they are building up their minds. There are many different types of Legos aimed towards different age groups.
For the youngest of kids, just the process of forming different shapes using the interlocking pieces helps toddlers boost their spatial intelligence, motor skills and encourages creativity. For older children, Legos are effectively teaching them the basics of design, construction, or even math and engineering!
Many Lego sets are designed with interesting mechanics and with interchangeability in mind. While just the idea of building a Lego set using the manual helps your child develop the skills and patience for building something, it is best to encourage your child to break out of the box and be as creative as possible. You’d be surprised what they can come up with!
Jigsaw Puzzles
It is no secret that puzzles are great for cognitive development, and Jigsaw puzzles are the first and foremost puzzle one would encounter early in their life. They help primarily with boosting a child’s intelligence in terms of problem solving logic, pattern recognition and memory. But not only that, it teaches them useful life skills such as patience, perseverance and concentration.
Unlike many kinds of puzzles or problem solving exercises that are useful for your child’s mental strength, Jigsaw puzzles promote more interest with providing a clear visual image that they use to track their progress. Completing a Jigsaw puzzle is also a great way for children to help themselves develop a sense of self achievement by completing an objective goal.
Music Toys
Musical abilities are actually directly related to intelligence, and if you want your toddler to be involved in music in the future, starting off with music toys is an obvious no brainer! The sheer act of a physical action producing interesting sounds would already spur endless interest for young minds.
Starting with music at a very young age is also essential for developing skills like perfect pitch which is believed to only be attainable before 6 years of age. Regardless, music toys will most definitely help with hand eye coordination, creativity and improvisational skills.
Let your child try out the toys in our play environment!
Hopefully now you have a better understanding of how toys for infants, toddlers and pre-school children can help them learn as they play. Every good playgroup provides such toys for their kids and Genesis Childcare 1989 is no exception!
If you’re in the east of Singapore and are looking for a preschool or kindergarten for your child, look no further, it is definitely one of the leading Tampines childcare centres!
Similarly, for parents living in the east of Singapore and are looking for an infant care centre in Tampines or a Tampines preschool, Nurture Infant House is one of the leading Tampines infant care centres with more than a decade of experience in caring for your beloved children.
Schedule a visit to our centres at these addresses:
Genesis Childcare 1989 (Tampines)
Blk 433, Tampines Street 43, #01-63 (S) 520433
Tel: +65 9666 4141
Genesis Childcare 1989 (Taman Jurong)
Blk 153, Yung Ho Road, #01-41 (S) 610153
Tel: +65 9666 4141
Nurture Infant House (Tampines)
(2 to 18 months Infants)
Blk 433, Tampines Street 43, #01-61 (S) 520433
Tel: +65 9666 4141