Educational Toys And Games For Children

When you're purchasing toys for your children, you need to strike a good balance between toys that are fun and toys and are educational. But everything is not black and white and there is often lots of crossover between fun toys and toys that can help to expand your children's minds.

It's always a good idea to choose toys and games wisely. Be aware that certain toys are important at certain stages of child development. Educating yourself as a parent in terms of child development will always stand you in good stead to buy the right types of children's toys and games at the right times.

When Christmas time looms, you'll be eagar to get shopping out of the way before the big rush that inevitably comes in the lead up to this special time of year. The same goes for birthday - you will want to choose and purchase children's toys well in advance in order to:

    Make sure that you choose the right toys and/or games to purchase ahead of time.
    Give yourself time to go shopping.
    Ensure that the perfect toys and/or games that you want to buy for your children are in stock (this especially applies to Christmas time when stock levels of toys can fluctuate due to high demand for certain items).
    Give yourself time to wrapup presents well before your child's birthday.

Educational toys and games are designed to help to teach your children various aspects of the world including numbers, words, shapes and colours. It's always good to ensure that your choice of toys and games is varied enough to challenge your children in a plethora of different ways. Toys that your child will enjoy will tend to be both engaging and stimulating. Your children will find these types of toys exciting and they will stimulate their mind. This is the perfect balance and I would recommend that, as a parent, you take your time in choosing toys and games of this nature to ensure that your children continue to learn at the desired rate.

One of the most notable aspects of child development that I've found is that children tend to copy their parents and want to be like them. With this in mind, it's worth purchasing toys and games that aim to encourage children to emulate their parents. So choose wisely when you're looking into the different types of children's educational toys and games to purchase.

Some Issues to Anticipate In Early Childhood Education

Working with very young children can be one of the most rewarding careers an educator can expect. This is the case because one is not merely educating or instructing them, but one has the potential to help shape their attitudes and personalities for the rest of their lives. While this is cleanly gratifying, it can be somewhat intimidating as well. It is possible a mistake, a simple oversight, or an instance of neglect of a budding problem could have greater negative repercussions later on. Unlike adolescents or young adults who have the larger capacity to deal with singular events of their lives and integrate them into their larger experiences, very young children might run the risk of elevating individual experiences into life-changing events.

Educators aim to serve and help the parents raise their children, not to replace them. But parents have the advantage of being able to deal with their own individual child in a closed one-on-one relationship. Early childhood educators cannot give individual children special attention and must be prepared to deal with situations where the possibility of one child in their class does not necessarily get along with the rest. Here are three example of personality types typically seen in children:

The Bully

Typically, bullies are depicted as being big and mean, but size really has nothing to do with it. Regardless of weight class, a bully is someone who picks on another kid with the intent of taunting or hurting the kid's feelings. One method for dealing with this situation is to discover a subject or skill the bully does not excel in, and to encourage the other children to help the bully.

The Shy One

Sometimes a child has a shyness that far exceeds normal levels and could possibly inhibit the child from talking, participating and interacting with other children. This could possibly be for a lack of confidence, in which case, one could take the opposite approach from that of the bully. Locate a specific strength or special interest of this child and encourage them to demonstrate this for the other children.

The Protester

Similarly to the shy child, this child also does not want to participate, but they are different because they have no problem vocalizing their resistance, or even physically revolting. Where one might be tempted to try reverse psychology, this can only further alienate this child. One method for dealing with this is to encourage this child to lead an activity, or even to choose the activity on their own. This can have the positive effect of instilling leadership skills.

Aspiring child educators can best prepare themselves through community courses for a variety of these special circumstances.

The wonderful thing about working with children is that they are all different. Early childhood education allows one to experience the varieties of personality types at their formative stages. But not only is it about experience, but about influencing the children who will inherit our future.

Visit Mohawk College for more information on personal support worker programs.

Michael Zunenshine is a Copywriter at Higher Education Marketing, a leading Web marketing firm specializing in Google Analytics, Education Lead Generation, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Mobile SMS Alerts, Social Media Marketing and Pay Per Click Marketing, among other Web marketing services and tools.