Special things can happen with children and their toys. During my youth, I can’t recall a girl who didn’t own a Barbie or a boy who didn’t run about the yard bringing to battle action figures with whom he was going to save the world. Magnetic building sets were spread all over the floors of every playroom I entered as a kid, including my own. We would construct incredible things with those LEGO sets; towering buildings for our Barbie doll or stuffed toys to live in, a store for them to shop in; the potential was only limited by our imaginations. While toys similar to these don’t usually fit into the category of educational toys, they most certainly do teach children valuable lessons.
Toys of all shapes and sizes and genres are important to children, even those that parents may not at first believe to be educational toys. This is as true today as it was years ago when I sat playing board games with my sister. Youngsters learn a lot of things by playing, and they cultivate their imaginations and their critical thinking skills. While parents may think that only educational games would actually be able to teach a child anything, that would be a mistake. In essence, most toys are educational toys when you understand that a child learns from free play.
The believing mind reaches its perihelion in the so-called Liberals. They believe in each and every quack who sets up his booth in the fairgrounds, including the Communists. The Communists have some talents too, but they always fall short of believing in the Liberals.
—H. L. (Henry Lewis)
Strategy games, while supplying a lot of entertainment, also work on cultivating a child’s reasoning talents as well as coping skills. Not everyone is a winner when playing board games, and occasionally losing at something is as important for a child to learn as winning is. When there is a winner and a loser in a board game, one player is humbled while the other, hopefully, learns to be a corteous winner. With the assistance of a focused parent, children will expand these skills. So popular are some board games that they are now being made in ways that they can be played in the car. Travel games may not be as stimulating as the original board games, but it sure keeps a child engaged during the trip!
Since the 1940’s, fathers and sons have spent hours of quality time over scale model sets. The vibrantly colorful blocks in a Lego set bring out the very best in a child’s imagination, and keep them occupied for days. What is so great about scale model sets is that just one set could produce a number of different items, from a animal to a gas station. Over the years, Lego sets have grown to where there are now sets specifically for girls, such as the Belville line. Of course, boys love Lego sets like Bionicles or Star Wars. But all children practice dexterity and creativity through Lego sets, and that’s what is really important.
See what gross inconsistency is tolerated. I have heard some of my townsmen say, “I should like to have them order me out to help put down an insurrection of the slaves, or to march to Mexico;Msee if I would go”; and yet these very men have each, directly by their allegiance, and so indirectly, at least, by their money, furnished a substitute. The soldier is applauded who refuses to serve in an unjust war by those who do not refuse to sustain the unjust government which makes the war; is applauded by those whose own act and authority he disregards and sets at naught; as if the state were penitent to that degree that it hired one to scourge it while it sinned, but not to that degree that it left off sinning for a moment. Thus, under the name of Order and Civil Government, we are all made at last to pay homage to and support our own meanness.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
Need more understanding of the value of Lego sets as an educational toy? Studies show that children develop new brain connections when working with scale model sets. By merely playing with their Lego set, children also learn spatial concepts, cause-and-effect, and fine motor skills. There’s no better way to learn!
Fran Swift writes about toys & games to help parents with their children's hobbies, and to keep them entertained with realistic action figures.