A Guide to Choosing the Right Interactive Learning Toys for the Right Age
Interactive learning toys and games are fun and all, but they also happen to build skills and aid in cognitive development. The educational value of fun learning games for kids and activities tends to be high, but can be counterproductive if they don’t match the developmental stage of kids. With the perfect balance of age appropriate toys and entertainment, children get the brain space and stimulation they need to learn vital skills. Here are some recommendations on what to consider while picking up a toy!
Preschooler and Kindergarten-Learning Toys for Kids:
As your child enters her preschool years, social, intellectual, and emotional changes come on rapidly. Be prepared to answer a lot of questions like “why is the sky blue?” or “why is the cat sad?”. Simple and succinct answers work best. Alternatively, you may want to refrain from answering some of her questions and help her with a book or a video instead so she can look into it further by herself, pique her curiosity and broaden knowledge.
Play becomes more purposeful as learning abilities become sharper. She has more fun with learning toys that challenge her fine motor skills and allow her to do more than just press buttons or stack rings. Play dough, puzzles, and building blocks help foster creativity, develop spatial awareness, resilience, logic, and visualization and improve fine motor skills. It is also the perfect time to introduce interactive learning resources toys that offer opportunities to discover the joy of learning so your child is motivated to learn before she starts formal schooling. Developing a sense of wonder and creativity is particularly important to extend learning. Built on this premise are ipad games for kids from Osmo that foster open-ended imaginative play. Kids can visualize a wand or a cat, create, and watch it magically come to life on a screen with the help of Mo, a furry friend through the Monster game.
Grade-schooler-Stem Learning Toys:
By the time your child is a grade-schooler, he starts developing his own interests and hobbies as he communicates with his peers, and others. As he grows older, there is a tremendous spurt in his physical, emotional, and cognitive development. He loves solving problems independently and being creative so exposing him to new things through play will keep him entertained and challenged. He also develops a better sense of attention and tries to gain mastery. Science kits and strategy-based games are just some of the best learning toys you can start him off with.
As he learns new concepts on STEM in school, it becomes more important that you make these subjects more approachable to keep his interest in them from waning. One way to do this is to encourage stem learning toys through hands-on play and teach these subjects in ways that support better retention. You can explore options from Osmo which has a wide range of STEAM games for kids and require nothing more than an iPad screen and some tactile objects that come with the games. This allows kids to make imaginative connections through technology, while being immersed in hands-on play. What you will also find with these games is that they can be adapted to your child’s stage of learning and interests.
Detective Agency is super-fun for younger kids who love some mystery! They travel the world solving cases and learning geography in the process. Kids that enjoy playing with their buddies can have a go together at Coding Duo, coding games for kids which is set to encourage peer-interaction while teaching kids basic commands and sequences. Your little ones will spend hours learning how to draw with Masterpiece, an interactive fun drawing games for kids. With minimal help, older children can do their math and learn some business acumen with Numbers and Pizza Co, a pizza game for kids.
Try these learning toys to get the best out of playtime.
