The Importance of Toys In Children's Learning and Development

For young children, Toys are not only an intimate partner in childhood, but also an important resource and medium for young children to learn.

1. Toys are the material basis for children's play

For young children, "playing" often means "playing with toys." Children’s games often rely on specific game materials or toys. Generally speaking, toys have pleasant sounds, bright colors, and beautiful shapes, which can arouse children's curiosity, stimulate children's interest in games, and induce children to show specific game choices and behaviors. Mr. Chen Heqin pointed out, “Children rarely play empty-handed. There must be many things to help them play and satisfy their desire to play.” Games are often regarded by children as “playing toys”. activity. Because children's thinking has the characteristics of direct action and concrete images, their actions are largely affected by the immediate situation and stimuli. They tend to play whatever games they see. For example, a 3-year-old child made the play behavior of hugging and coaxing the doll to sleep, not because she thought of playing the mother beforehand, but because she saw the doll, she showed the role behavior of the mother holding and coaxing the doll. Research shows that role-playing toys often trigger children's role-playing games, while building blocks and Unicorn Cape trigger children's construction games.

Toys

2. Toys are a medium for children to interact with people

Toys are a medium for children to interact with their peers. With the help of toys, children can effectively start, maintain, and promote peer interactions, and gain the trust and friendship of peers. For preschool children, a good friend is someone who plays with me and gives me toys. Toys can also cause peer conflicts, but they also provide opportunities for young children to learn to resolve conflicts.

Toys are a medium for adults to care for and educate children. With the help of toys, adults initiate interaction with children, convey and express their love, encouragement, comfort and support for children, and support and expand children's learning. The educational effect of playing with young children with the help of intuitive toys is often far better than the thousands of words of adult preaching.

3. Toys are the bridge between young children and the surrounding material world

Toddlers are curious about the world around them, but there are many objects and tools in the real adult world that children cannot reach. Soviet psychologist Ali Corning pointed out that the origin of toys stems from the needs of society. In order to allow future members of society to have the general abilities necessary for mastering tools, adults have created toys for children, that is, special objects that help children practice "general abilities". Adults teach children how to use these toys. Children use this toy to imitate the production, labor and life activities of adults that they can’t participate in, but they really want to participate. Toys connect young children with the real material world. Toys condense the cultural and historical experience of human society. When young children understand the name, purpose and usage of toys with the help of adults, they are learning and mastering the human social, cultural and historical experience condensed in toys.

For preschool children, toys are an important way for them to master the standards of social experience. Toys have sensory characteristics such as shape, color, and size. Since toys are the result of refining, generalizing and processing real life objects on the basis of real life, the sensory characteristics of toys are often more typical. Good quality toys generally have standard colors and shapes. The characteristics of toys in terms of color and shape can help young children learn and master the standard system of social sensory experience unique to humans. In addition to the shape and color of the object’s sensory characteristics, it is also important for young children to understand the purpose of the social life production products simulated by the objects, master the methods of using these objects, and use these objects as unique "tools" for humans. task. Toys provide objects and opportunities for children to learn and master "tools" by simulating actual objects in human society. Toys are a way for children to enter the treasure house of human social, cultural and historical experience.

4. Toys are the material carrier of culture and a tool for cultural inheritance and dissemination

The design, production, consumption and use of toys reflect on the one hand the achievements of the development of human society’s material civilization and technological progress; on the other hand, they also reflect the beliefs, customs, concepts and aesthetic psychology of a society, reflecting the impact of a specific culture on children’s learning and The expectations and hopes of development convey a specific cultural value orientation.

It is precisely because toys can realize the function of cultural enrichment and acculturation in a subtle way. As professional educators, they should maintain a cultural sensitivity, consciously analyze and reflect on the cultural connotation behind toys, and choose culturally appropriate for children Toys, and use toys to help young children understand and respect the diversity of human races and cultures, and form multicultural and anti-prejudice concepts.

5. Toys are the most suitable "textbook" for children to learn

With the development of society, people pay more and more attention to the educational function of toys, hoping to use toys to stimulate the development of the senses and movements of infants and young children, develop their intelligence, and promote their physical and mental development. With the development of child psychology and pedagogy, the production and design of toys pay more and more attention to the characteristics of the physical and mental development of infants and young children, so that they can meet the expectations and requirements of education.

Toys and game materials are also tools for children to express themselves. With the help of toys and game materials, especially through pretending and "substituting things", young children can show things that are not in front of them, reproduce the life events they experience, show and express their knowledge, experience, emotions and emotions about the life events experienced, and release Anxiety, an opportunity to deal with tension and impulse, to understand the boundaries and relationships between reality and imagination, and to promote the construction, reorganization and transformation of experience.

The company also provides Parent-Child Toys, please feel free to contact us if necessary