Best Toys for Children in Primary Grades

 

by Stevanne Auerbach, Ph.D. – “Dr. Toy”

Children enrolled in the primary grades are actively involved in friendships, interested in learning, happily engaged in outdoor play, rapidly gaining skills, and expanding a wide variety of interests.

Peers are very important as are their activities and a range of toys, especially the products their friends play with. Children of this age express their ideas, creativity, feelings, abilities, and personality while they are engaged in play. They share the give and take, conflicts, and challenges of getting along.

Encourage play with both younger and older children to offer a full range of social experiences, which benefits all children.

You can choose among many useful play products for children from five- to eight-years-old.

Active toys develop their large and small muscles. Consider skates, jump ropes, construction, and a variety of role playing and adventure type toys.

Creative toys develop imagination. Explore musical instruments, varied art supplies, crafts, puppets, a dollhouse (one they can decorate is enjoyable), or train layout.

Educational toys enhance reading, writing, math, science, or geography. They stimulate mental abilities, challenge thinking, and help them problem-solve with a chess set, strategy board game, science project, telescope, or beginning a hobby.

Create a special place for child to study and organize playthings. Your child needs easy access to the wonderful products you purchase. Find new ways to store playthings so your child can take responsibility for putting things away.

Some useful ways to handle organizing includes:

• Shelving makes storage easy.
• Boxes or bags can hold a lot.
• Shoe boxes are useful for tapes, small pieces, and art supplies.
• Large boxes can be decorated.
• A hammock is a good way to store stuffed and soft toys or dolls.
• A toy chest must have safety hinges.

Take some time each day to play a board game, building, or doing a craft with your child.
Quality time means having fun together.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 6th, 2014 at 9:22 am. It is filed under Holiday Gift Guide. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.