Toys For Children And Their Importance In Growth
Toys For Children And Their Importance In Growth.
Children with ages ranging from two to six years old are usually very playful and often they prefer to spend most of their time playing, with other children or by themselves, with toys. Toys are usually a huge and very important factor and form of learning for children as they grow up. There are all sorts of toys, ranging from educational toys, body building toys that usually involve physical exercise for the child. All these are essential for both the physical, psychological, social and emotional growth of the child. Nancy B’s science club offers children, about six years old and above, with aqua scope science club kit that gives children in junior schools chance to explore and learn more about what they learn in school.
The aqua scope and underwater kit provides children with educational insights, submerges them in the underwater world giving them a chance to explore plants and other creatures found in lower depths of water. The children are able to record and conduct great experiments; it also involves a drawing and creative writing activity that enables the children to describe what they have observed. The aqua scope kit has the following components, a telescope that magnifies under water life to up to five times, three bright LED lights that illuminate even in the darkest parts of the water, a built in thermometer that is used to measure the temperature of the water, and a ruler that enables the kids to measure objects found in the water. The kit is quite portable as it only requires three triple A batteries and also has a journal that helps in recording of the data collected.
Children development, in terms of information processing, perceptual skill and learning of language or simply getting the child to learn how to read, listen, interpret and apply what they have learnt is quite important for the growth and the development of the child. Experience of the child while using the aqua scope kit, the child’s cognitive development is enhanced. Apart from what children learn in class, more visual activities and those that involve field activity tend to be more fun and interesting for the child. This way in the process of them exploring the underwater through the fun of doing it, they are able to learn more and see what they learn in class live. The aqua scope kit enables the children understand widely, learn and discover more; increasing their scope of knowledge about the underwater life. Through recording and drawing they are able to enhance their memory skills; via naming and matching of creatures or plants they are able to pronounce and identify and differentiate one organism from another.
Compared to the cognitive needs the needs the toy addresses, the social-emotional development is not so much. The kit doesn’t require many children to handle, maybe two to three is enough to handle and help in handling the telescope, LED light and the thermometer; however minimal, still the child’s social life is able to develop since the three can be considered a team. They all need each other to conduct the exploration this also builds friendships among the children. Through class activities, such as asking questions and discussions children get to know one another and are able to associate with each other.
Physical aspect of the child’s development needs is also not so strongly brought out by the toy. However the toy requires the child to be able to swim. Through the swimming activity the child’s physical involvement is enhanced and simultaneously aiding in body development and physical exercise. Since mostly the explorations are conducted in ponds, considering the age of the children the kit is designed for, with the supervision of an adult the children are safe and the equipment itself is small hence will not require too much effort form the children.
Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky, Russian psychologists who greatly venture to explain the human cultural ways and came up with the theory of cultural- historical psychology. Less known, in his amount of work, was the explanation of play in a child’s life. He tries to explain that playing stimulate children’s ability to imagine things increasing their knowledge about the things that are existent in the world. Since the children are learning and discovering new organisms, they are able to get the idea other creatures which they have not yet discovered are present (Lillemyr, 75). Through this knowledge, children are able to try and explore more in the search for new creatures. Through the recording and discussions, they are able to compare and classify creatures and plants henceforth any new discovery made, they are in a position to identify to which group the organism belongs to and they can research about it. Gross also gave a play theory that explains children doing things that prepare them for adult hood known as Preparation for Adult hood. This theory reflects to the aqua scope kit toy through giving the children the notion that they are scientists and they are exploring the underwater life, they are able to enhance their skills and some grow up to be great scientist and develop the love for aqua life science (Isbell, 69).
Play and use of toys is very important for the cognitive growth, physical and social growth of children. The aqua scope kit is definitely the best toy to get for your child, being an educational tool it would be best recommended. It is both fun generating and mind involving toy that would aid in improving grades in science class and also in the development of children research skills.
Lillemyr, Ole Fredrik. Taking play seriously children and play in early childhood education– an exciting challenge. Charlotte, NC: IAP, Information Age Pub., 2009. PrinIsbell, Rebecca T., and Shirley C. Raines.Creativity and the arts with young children. 2nd ed. Clifton Park, NY: Thomson Delmar Learning, 2007. Print
