Providing your children arts and crafts time is not only a great “quiet time” play idea it will help your children develop fine motor skills. Crafts that include the use of scissors, beads, crayons, finger paints or anything else you can think of to get their fingers involved will benefit your children.
An old time favorite from the 1950’s is Silly Putty ® and is a great quiet-time activity to help your children with his fine motor skills. James Wright, a GE engineer, came upon the material by mixing silicone oil with boric acid. The compound, acted very much like rubber in its ability to rebound almost 25 percent higher than a normal rubber ball. My favorite memory of playing with Silly Putty was pressing it onto the Sunday comic’s page and making an imprint.
Did you know that Silly Putty sold faster than any other toy in history with over $6 million in sales for the year? Silly Putty is now the registered trademark of Binney & Smith Inc.
Besides encouraging craft activities for your children you can also provide other activities such as building toys such as Legos, Tinker Toys and cardboard building blocks
. These toys are manipulativies and will enhance fine motor skills just the same as coloring, painting and cutting.
Toy blocks such as ImagiBRICKS are giant sized cardboard blocks and are available in sets as small as 16 pieces. Three sizes of blocks are available in the 24 and 40 piece set or you may get a bulk quantity order when you have several children who will be playing together.
Children are always seeking out new ways to play creatively. But, there is also ways you can help them.
Here is a unique way to use your old typewriter; and if you do not have one maybe I will sell you mine!
Children often have a parent who works in an office and you can have fun teaching them about how an office is set up just like the one you work in. You can set up a mini office with the help of toy blocks by Smart Monkey Toys. These giant building blocks come in sets of Rainbow colors and can be ordered in any quantity you need from All I Can Imagine.
Set up the typewriter or maybe even an old keyboard on a child size table or a table made from the toy blocks. Make another work table and provide your children paper, pencils, telephone, address book and other child-safe office supplies. Set up another office and each of you will have fun interacting.
Children enjoy being creative and it will help them to make sense of the actual world we adults live in and they will especially love having you play with them. When you provide role playing activities in a real life setting you will gain greater insight into your child’s life and help him develop necessary social skills.
Cardboard toy blocks are made in the USA by Smart Monkey Toys. This toy company only uses recycled corrugated cardboard.
Their trade name for these toy blocks is ImagiBRICKS and all these giant building blocks are made of at least 50% recycled cardboard. The actual amount varies with each run, but is never less than 50%. The trees used for the remainder are all farmed.
The wonderful thing about corrugated cardboard is that it is strong, yet very lightweight, making it a wonderful choice for preschool play. The cardboard is printed with water-based, non-toxic colorful inks. And an additional clear ink coating to each block to make it water-resistant. The cardboard building blocks are also recyclable. Every component of the block sets are made right here in America. They are produced in Wisconsin, where there is a large paper industry.
Smart Monkey Toy’s warehouse is near the plant where the blocks are produced. By keeping everything close, this toy company cuts down on the fuel needed to transport materials and providing much needed jobs to American workers.
The paper industry in our country has been struggling with many companies buying their cardboard from China. China has to import their raw materials from the U.S. or Canada to make their cardboard. The lumber is transported from North American to China, made into cardboard and then transported back to North America. The cost of this inefficient process is lost jobs, and much greater use of valuable fuel.
Back in the 1950’s my dad built me some wooden shelves so I could play shopping. My playmates and I would often shop in our grocery store and to this day I like to go food shopping.
Creative play is an important learning tool for children and they need all the open-ended play time they can get. Setting up a grocery store that is not as permanent as the one I had in my basement can be built with ImagiBRICKS toy blocks. These giant cardboard building blocks can be purchased online and come in red, orange, purple, green and timber-look.
The kids in your neighborhood will help you collect empty cereal boxes, cans, pasta boxes, asprin boxes, diaper boxes, etc. Design your store with the toy blocks then place your products on your shelves.
Get together and price all your cans and boxes and make some carts out of old boxes. Kids will have a ball shopping in their very own store and this pretend game will help provide them opportunities to learn organizational skills, mathematical skills and important problem solving skills.
Children can take turns collecting the play money and giving change. After they have finished shopping each child can load his purchases in a wagon and go to her own “house”; which could also be built with the building block toys.
Developing Children’s Gross Motor Skills with Building Blocks Toys
Movement of the large muscles of the body refers to gross motor control and begins developing from birth. Your babies first learned motor control begins with the control of his own head and torso.
Your child will then go on to master sitting, crawling, standing and eventually walking, running and jumping as well as the range of activities. Meanwhile your child will be learning balance and the ability to maintain equilibrium, body awareness (for improved posture and control), major muscle co-ordination and spatial orientation.
You can help your children improve and master spatial orientation – the awareness of his body position in space and in relation to other objects (or people), by providing him with giant cardboard building blocks. Even when your child is too young to begin building structures with toy blocks they are a useful educational toy for other purposes.
By placing the toy blocks around in a maze-like configuration your child will love mastering walking (or running) around the blocks. To begin building your child’s major muscles and co-ordination, have him/her help you construct towers; this will also help with your child’s balance.
Your older children may want to build structures with the cardboard blocks so have enough on hand for both activities. Sixteen piece set of ImagiBRICKS is pictured above. We also carry sets of 24, 40 and bulk quantity cardboard blocks.
Your child will love games played at their level, on the floor. You and your toddler will have plenty of laughs when you get down on the floor and play with them.
With or without “props” you can laugh yourself silly and kids of all ages can participate. Play peek-a-boo by crawling around furniture (watch the sharp edges of tables, please). You could set up pillows and cushions around the room and have races around the objects.
Have a make believe zoo and each person is a different animal. Talk about the animals and how they might relate to one another. Before you plan this you could do online research and get some simple facts about several animals; find some that do well together and maybe some who can not co-exist.
Bring out your son’s trucks, earth moving equipment trucks, police cars and fire trucks and make up some games. If you have large toy blocks such as ImagiBRICKS cardboard building blocks you can “build” garages, police stations, fire stations and such.
Giant building blocks are also good for crawling around while playing peek-a-boo. Weaving in and out of a maze of blocks helps children learn balance – they aren’t supposed to knock the blocks down while maneuvering around each set of blocks.
Wind down the fun by playing something quieter such as putting puzzles together or coloring. Maybe you will all fall asleep for a little nap right there on the floor. Just grab one of the pillows and snuggle up with your toddler.
More and more people want children’s toys made here in the USA. Did you know that kids building blocks by Smart Monkey Toys are produced in Wisconsin?
Cardboard toy blocks by Smart Monkey Toys are made in the USA using recycled corrugated cardboard. The toy blocks are made of at least 50% recycled cardboard. The actual amount varies with each run, but is never less than 50%.
The trees used for the remainder are all farmed. The wonderful thing about corrugated cardboard is that it is strong, yet very lightweight, making it a wonderful choice for preschool play. The cardboard is printed with water-based, non-toxic colorful inks and an additional clear ink coating is added to each block to make it water-resistant. The coating is not slippery because we want our blocks to stack.
The blocks are also recyclable. Every component of the block sets are made right here in America. They are produced in Wisconsin, where there is a large paper industry. The warehouse is near the plant where the blocks are produced. By keeping everything close, Smart Monkey Toy cuts down on the fuel needed to transport materials and providing much needed jobs to American workers.
The paper industry in our country has been struggling with many companies buying their cardboard from China. China has to import their raw materials from the U.S. or Canada to make their cardboard. The lumber is transported from North American to China, made into cardboard and then transported back to North America. The cost of this inefficient process is lost jobs, and much greater use of valuable fuel.
Parents and educators love giving their toddlers and young children giant cardboard building blocks. ImagiBRICKS, now from Smart Monkey Toys, are toy blocks that are made from recycled cardboard.
The wonderful thing about corrugated cardboard is that it is strong, yet very lightweight, making it a wonderful choice for preschool play. The cardboard is printed with water-based, non-toxic colorful inks and an additional clear ink coating is added to each block to make it water-resistant. The blocks are also recyclable.
Giving these giant kids building blocks to young children is recommended by doctors, parents and educators. Kids will carry them around and their muscle strength and coordination will begin to increase.
As they get a little older they will begin making simple towers. Knocking them down will be just as much fun as carring the toy blocks from place to place and their creative little minds will soon begin making simple towers and structures.
Groups of children will gather around the cardboard building blocks and begin to work independently (if there are enough blocks to go around). If you have a limited supply of blocks and there are several children around you will want to help them “work” together to build a small structure.
If you own a preschool or children’s play zone it is recommended to own a bulk quantity of at least one hundred cardboard toy blocks.
I remember that it was my birthday and I had just received my birthday present from my grandparents. I was so excited that I had to open that one first. I opened the box as fast as I could and saw just flat red and white cardboard.
I told my mom that I didn’t like my present. She got down on her knees and said to me that all it needed was to be put together. At my age, I wasn’t very happy if I couldn’t play with a toy right then. My mom and sister sat down and put all of the toy blocks together for me.
It took what seemed like forever, but when all the cardboard building blocks were put together, I ended up having a blast with them. I got to make my own chair out of them. The chair was more like a stool, but at that age I didn’t care. I could even sit in it with out breaking the blocks or even bending them.
I thought that was so cool at the age of six. I could play with the blocks for hours. I think my grandparent got me the 36 piece set of these blocks, but you can also get them in a 16 piece or a 24 piece set.
Yes, parents and educators and preschool’s can still purchase these amazing kids learning toys. Manufactured in Wisconsin by Smart Monkey Toys there are sets of 16, 24 and 40 and bulk quantity cardboard blocks are also available. Also available are City Blocks sets and Castle Blocks sets, Timber Blocks as well as Construction Blocks.
Have we begun to expect too much academically from our children too soon? Children only have up until about second grade to be children where they can play most all of the time.
Children may be expected to know certain things when entering kindergarten but let’s not forget that they can learn through play and not formal-like lessons. This is why educational childrens toys such as adventure playsets and toy blocks are important to have in your children’s play room both at home and in their preschools.
According to Valerie Strauss in an article in the Washington Post “There is solid research on the benefits of well-designed play that teaches kids to ask questions and find their own answers”.
If you as parents see your kids playing with wooden playsets or toy blocks and think they are wasting their time, you may want to re-evaluate your opinions. Allowing your children creative playtime and providing them with open-ended toys will automatically open up exciting teaching opportunities you probably could not plan.
Let’s lessen up on pushing so hard teaching younger kids, toddlers, and preschoolers so that we do not kill the joy of learning in our children before second grade.