Fun and Educational Toys for Kids

Children love to play with toys that are fun. They sometimes entertain themselves for hours with a favorite toy. Wouldn’t it be great if they spent that time learning instead of just playing?

Educational toys allow children to play and learn at the same time. Finding toys that your child enjoys playing with and learns from might take some trial and error, but it is well worth it. The right toys can help your child learn skills that she will need in school, and those same skills will carry over into adulthood. Here are some fun and educational toys that many children love to play with.

Bead Mazes

Toddlers love those bead maze toys that are found in many pediatricians’ waiting rooms. Smaller versions are available that they can play with at home. These allow children to practice grasping small objects, and you don’t have to worry about them swallowing anything. They also promote problem-solving skills and they’re usually brightly colored to provide visual stimulation.

Play-Doh

Have you ever met a kid who didn’t love Play-Doh? It’s great for a wide range of ages, and it helps kids develop fine motor skills and learn their colors. Best of all, it requires them to stretch their imaginations and be creative.

Building Toys

Building toys come in many forms, shapes and sizes. Blocks are the most common type of building toy, and kids can think of a seemingly endless number of ways to use them. They can build houses, towers, animals and more. Groups of children can work together to build something, making blocks great for learning social skills. Alphabet blocks have the added benefit of introducing letters, numbers and colors.

Art and Music Toys

Kids love to draw, paint and make music. Art supplies and musical instrument can provide hours upon hours of entertainment. They encourage abstract thinking, creativity and imagination. A group of kids with musical instruments can also play music together, developing social skills such as teamwork and conflict resolution along the way.

Electronic Games

Electronic games are designed to teach such things as shapes, alphabet, numbers, phonics and math. Some such games are quite entertaining. They make sounds and light up when kids get something right, providing both visual stimulation and positive reinforcement.

It is important, however, that electronic toys are not the only ones that kids play with. Most such toys do not encourage creativity like simpler ones do, and if electronic toys are all that a child plays with, he will miss out on more creative learning opportunities.

Toys that are educational allow kids to learn and have fun at the same time. When both things go hand in hand, kids enjoy learning and retain the things they learn better.