Even though preschoolers find fun and friendships with their peers, their most important relationships are with their parents and other family members. Therefore, it is important for adults to continuously help their preschoolers work out interpersonal difficulties in a positive way.
Parents teach children how to behave correctly because they love their children and the children will listen as a parent explains correct behavior because they care about the parent and their opinion of themselves. This effective socialization is therefore based on a high-quality attachment relationship.
As parents provide their children with open-ended toddler learning toys opportunities to learn proper social skills will automatically happen. Toys that have no “rules”, such as playsets, allow children to make up their own situations and parents can gently guide their play as needed.
Many of parents bonding experiences with their children can happen during open-ended playtime. Teaching opportunities easily open up while children are playing with themed play sets such as a farm, zoo or safari toys for toddlers.
Spending time with your child while he plays, and playing with him, has several benefits for parents and the child as well. While interacting with your child (or several children) they will be thriving in a stimulating environment.
Providing toddler learning toys that are open ended and provide a moderate challenge to your childs physical and cognitive abilities will make their playtime an educational experience without them knowing they are learning.
Adults providing close attention to children’s playtime, while being friendly and nurturing, will help all the children involved nurture one another. As parents are pointing to words in a book or an animal in a puzzle and begin talking about it the children will easily open up with their own ideas and questions.
During this type of playtime, if you as a parent have a particular lesson you want to teach, you can provide a hands-on learning experience that children will be interested in and they will easily absorb their lesson. This nurturing type of playtime is useful at home as well in child care and nursery school programs.
See our new A Day on the Farm Playset. We have just added a new wooden kids toy to our website that is a perfect educational toy for 3 year old boys and girls. Kids will love learning about farm animals as they play with each chunky wood figure. Cows, roosters, pigs and more!
Playful Penguin Pastimes -
Between staying warm, raising chicks, finding food and avoiding predators, a penguin’s life may not sound like much fun. But penguins have some playful pastimes — many of which are surprisingly similar to human hobbies!
Tobogganing: Penguins lie on their belly and toboggan through the ice and snow. This helps them move quickly.
Surfing: Penguins are often seen surfing through the waves onto land. It is also fun to dive into the water!
If you are a penguin your dinner will consist of seafood. A penguin’s main diet is fish, though they’ll also eat squid, small shrimplike animals called “krill” and crustaceans.
If you look closely at a penguin’s bill you’ll notice a hook at the end, perfect for grabbing dinner. They also have backward facing bristles on their tongues that help slippery seafood from getting away.
Penguins don’t live near freshwater — at least none that isn’t frozen. Instead they drink salt water. They have a special gland in their bodies that takes the salt out of the water they drink and pushes it out of grooves in their bill. A handy in-house filtration system!
Read more at: http://www.kidzone.ws/animals/penguins/facts9.htm
Why not take a minute or two and look through our website’s selections of toddler learning toys which include alphabet and number puzzles. Our Counting penguins 3d wooden puzzles have just arrived in our latest shipment and are once again available for your children. These wood puzzles are for ages 3 and up and are painted with lead-free, non toxic paint.
Have you wandered through our selection of wood puzzles lately? Several of our toddler learning toys have been out of stock but we are happy to announce that most all of our 3d wooden puzzles have just arrived in our lastest shipment.
Included in this shipment of our 3d wooden puzzles were our brightly colored butterfly alphabet puzzles and our counting penguins. Both of these wood puzzles are excellent tools for parents and preschool teachers to help teach children their abc’s or counting numbers 1-10.
Butterfly Facts for Kids
Butterflies belong to the insect order Lepidoptera, which is Greek for “scaly wing.” Butterfly wings are made of tiny scales that create beautiful colors and striking patterns. The dark colors help the butterfly keep warm by absorbing heat from sunlight.
Because they are cold-blooded, butterflies cannot produce their own body heat. There are about 20,000 species of butterflies and they can be found in every part of the world, except in Antarctica.
During their lifetimes butterflies change form three times – from egg to caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly. This is called metamorphosis. When the caterpillar hatches from the egg, all it wants to do is eat. It gains so much weight that it has to shed its skin four or five times. The last shed produces a hard case called a chrysalis or pupa.
Some species wrap themselves in silk before they change to a chrysalis for extra protection. Though it’s not visible, a dramatic change takes place inside the chrysalis. The caterpillar turns into a butterfly. Some species make the change in few days; others may take years!
Read more about butterflies on the website where I located the above information: www.theworldalmanacforkids.com
According to what I have read children generate knowledge and meaning from their own experiences (child developmental experts at GeniusBabies.com). They suggest that “educational toys for younger children are based on constructivism, a psychological theory”.
Therefore, it is necessary to allow children to create their own knowledge by allowing them to be active in their own learning process. This process applies to infants, toddlers as well as preschoolers.
However, it is also suggested that most toys can be educational through play for all developmental stages of childhood. Parents and educators shopping for their children’s toys are encouraged to read the boxes of all toys they are considering purchasing to ensure they are getting an age appropriate toy.
Remember, though, that it is a good idea to choose toys that are appropriate for your own child’s stage of development – regardless of his/her age.
If you have children age 1-1/2 they will enjoy playing with Backyard Buddy Blocks manufactured by ImagiPLAY. These blocks are safe toddler learning toys which provide puzzle fun play as well as block play.
Whether you purchase Backyard Buddy Blocks, Jungle blocks or Farm blocks, these wooden kid’s toys will provide your child hours of fun matching up the animals. Each block set is also a color matching puzzle. There are 6 different puzzles in each set, featuring colorful animals your kids will love.
Read more at Suite101: Best Gifts for Children: Educational Games and Toys That Teach and Promote Physical Fitness http://kids-games.suite101.com/article.cfm/best_gifts_for_children#ixzz0k3gw1YXG
You will provide your children a world of fun learning and creative building opportunities when you give them giant toy blocks. Children learn through play and blocks are one of the best toddler learning toys on the market.
When children reach for, pick up, stack, or fit blocks together, they build strength in their fingers and hands, and increase eye-hand coordination. Around two, children begin to figure out which shapes will fit where, and get a head start on understanding different perspectives — skills that will help them to read maps and follow directions later on.
Cardboard building blocks help kindergarten and primary grade children develop skills in design, representation, balance and stability.
ImagiBRICKS™ are the award winning toy blocks your parents used to play with and are available in various quantities. You can get a set as small as 16 pieces in all red, 40 pieces in three colors and sizes all the way up to bullk quantity blocks. See all our other sets at All I Can Imagine.
Our toddler learning toys come with a drool-proof coating and are crush-proof.
One thing toddlers love to do is jump. To keep them off the furniture you could place large pillows on your floor; or, if you have an old mattress that is even better.
Go for walks on different types of surfaces. Walking on grass, gravel, or sand and uneven surfaces will not only challenge their balance it will help muscles develop.
If you have stairs let them practice climbing up and down when you are watching and standing close by. If you do not have stairs it is a good idea to have a set of giant cardboard building blocks called ImagiBRICKS.
These toy blocks can be stood on without crushing. You can place them around the room in a maze like formation and have your children walk around them as well as step up on top of them. They will learn to balance, step up and down and use a variety of muscles while having a great time playing.
Of course, as with any set of building blocks they will stack them up and knock them down. They will carry them around and put them in wagons. All this play is open-ended and will allow for many hours of creative play to help build confidence and self-esteem.
You will be providing your toddlers and young children with one of the best toddler learning toys on the market when you provide them with a set of ImagiBRICKS.
Your grandparents had ImagiBRICKS™ toy blocks when they were growing up. You won’t find them in stores but they still can be purchased online.
Parents, educators and doctors all recommend giant building blocks for toddlers and if you want the award-winning toy blocks you will have to pay a little more. Be careful when shopping in toy stores and on line, there are imitations that look like ImagiBRICKS™ and they have the same “brick design”, but they are not as strong and would crush if your child stood on them.
Toddlers and young children love to build tall towers and knock them down. They also love to carry things around. Because ImagiBRICKS™ are both strong and lightweight your toddler will build muscle strength by building structures as well as lifting and carrying the blocks.
As toddler learning toys, these giant building blocks also help teach math concepts and spatial awareness. Try a starter set of 16 pieces or our popular 40 piece set that includes three sizes of blocks, large red, medium blue and small yellow.
You can teach your child a love of learning by example. Although your toddler will take up a lot of your attention, you can still sit quietly while she plays nearby and read a newspaper or magazine.
She may become curious and want to see what you are reading, or she may want to copy you by sitting down with her own magazine or book and trying to read also. The more your children see you reading the better.
One of the best toddler learning toys you will own is a set of Little Reader Blocks. These toy blocks are imprinted with over 100 of the first sight words your children will have to know. Your children can play with them as blocks but more importantly they will learn individual words and how to form simple, short sentences.
Many games can be played with Little Reader Blocks and you will be surprised at how quickly your children will take out these blocks and play with them by themselves. While you are reading you might point to a word in your child’s book and then have them find the word from their toy blocks. It is a good idea to pull several blocks out of the set, including the one you want them to identify, so they don’t get frustrated when they can’t quickly find the word from the twenty piece set.
Both you and your toddler will have fun playing together. Play releases your toddler’s energy in a positive manner and may help your stress level decrease when you play open ended games and don’t have to say “no”.
One idea is to do some simple Yoga exercises. If you know any yoga poses, you will find that toddlers can catch on quickly. Toddlers enjoy imitating anything. Do the simple animal poses, such as monkey, elephant or down dog. Then make up your own silly poses.
These games will also offer you teaching opportunities about the animals and their habits. And if you have more time have a simple animal theme craft handy.
The elephant is a highly intelligent mammal. The African elephant is the largest land animal. During these activities children can learn some basic facts about this amazing mammal. http://www.first-school.ws/activities/shapes/animals/elephantshapes.htm
Your toddler will love playing with a Safari Stacking Blocks set which includes many animals (including a large elephant) and your child will love imitating and learning more about all of the safari animals. These wooden kids toys are excellent toddler learning toys for kids two and up. Available online at All I Can Imagine.