Dr. Toys Tips on Construction Toys
San Francisco,
CA – Building with blocks and
construction toys helps children to sharpen
their minds, strengthen hands and improve
coordination while having a lot of fun.
Constructive play has many benefits to
enhance dexterity, spatial thinking and
creativity according Stevanne Auerbach,
Ph.D., the child play expert known as Dr
Toy.
Playing with
blocks is a natural pastime for little ones
reaching out to explore the world. She says
that continuing to engage in building play
helps your child gain many other important
skills.
“Your young
architect is gaining small muscle dexterity,
learning to find a placement for objects,
balance and practicing eye-hand
coordination,” says Auerbach, the author of
15 books including “Dr.
Toy’s Smart Play/Smart Toys:
How to Raise a Child
with a High P.Q. (Play Quotient)”.
“Construction play helps introduce your
child to art and design, architecture and
history, mathematics and science. Logical
reasoning, cause and effect, and engineering
are all part of the constructive play
experience.”
Dr Toy offers
these tips to help spark your child’s
creativity with block and construction play:
-
Take the time
to get down on the floor and play with
your child when he or she is building
with a construction toy. You can make
something separately or work on the same
project. The important part is your
child will see you building too and your
actions reinforce this form of play.
-
Help your
child enjoy building even more by
finding some easy storage bins to put
small parts into, to safely store and to
gain easy access.
-
Give your
child plenty of time to build. Having
time to build without frustration is
important to allow child to discover
strengths.
-
Provide your
child with a variety of construction
toys-soft, foam, cardboard, plastic and
wood.
-
Playing with
blocks and construction toys is another
great opportunity for families to
reconnect across all ages. They help
everyone have fun, be creative, learn
building strategy and gain many other
skills.
As your child
grows there are many opportunities for more
sophisticated construction projects that
offer more complicated and challenging
building. See “Dr. Toy’s Guide” at www.drtoy.com
for a selection of award winning
construction products such as KAPLA, to
build as tall and as complicated structures
as your child can imagine (www.kaplatoys.com);
Gears! Gears! Gears! Illuma-Bot, a
105-piece set to build a mechanical robot (www.learningresources.com);
and the Magnetix MagnaCase (www.megabrandsinc.com).
More Construction Play Tips from Stevanne Auerbach, PhD/Dr. Toy
Benefits of
Using Blocks and Construction Toys:
Many different
educational and creative play skills evolve
from building experiences:
-
They are
learning and creating their own ideas
for buildings, structures, and designing
imaginary things.
-
Construction
toys build strength in a child’s fingers
and hands, and improve their eye-hand
coordination.
-
Construction
and block play encourages social
relationships among children and is a
valuable cooperative play opportunity
for groups of children.
-
Constructive
play helps children to expand their
language abilities and as they are able
articulate about size, shape, colors,
comparisons and other aspects of
building.
-
Children
learn and practice math skills through
block and construction play by grouping,
adding, subtracting, and sequencing.
-
Science and
physics are experienced when the child
experiments with gravity and balance.
Questions
to ask when selecting construction toys:
-
Is this
the right construction set for child’s
age and ability and will it provide fun
and self expression? If there is
sufficient fun and excitement your child
will enjoy using the product. If it is
challenging, but not frustrating it is
the right product.
-
Does the
construction toy have aspects right for
your child? If the product allows
for “open- ended” play and supports your
child’s self expression
your child can make the construction
product turn out to match their own
fantasy.
-
Does the
toy stimulate conversation and
expression? Good construction toys
offer fun, provide surprise, novelty
each time a creation is made and ample
chances for everyone to excel.
-
Does the
construction toy support skill building?
Block and constructive play helps all
ages keep mentally alert and provides
practice for children to develop many
important skills including math,
science, physics, patterning,
sequencing, visual discrimination and
strategy and eye-hand coordination. As
they mature with more complicated
products they can learn about
structures, levers, mechanisms and
pulleys.
Dr. Stevanne Auerbach is the director of the Institute for Childhood Resources and an internationally recognized author, speaker and authority on play and children's toys. Her annual awards programs recognize the best toys and children's products for learning and fun. The15th Annual "Dr. Toy's 100 Best Children's Products" Awards for 2006 now are available online at
www.drtoy.com.
Media Contact: Angie Niehoff
561-868-0297 or
niehoff@bellsouth.net
Dr. Toy's Tips on
Construction in
pdf
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