How to find actual educational toys for your child

It can feel like everything is an educational toy these days.

Loud, colourful, battery-powered gadgets are, according to advertisers, educational. With letters, colours, or numbers on them, they must be, right?

It’s not so straightforward. Children need toys that are developmentally appropriate, flexible, social, and promote active learning — flashing lights and colours don’t offer these features.

The truth is that the best educational toys are often the simplest.

The History Of Educational Toys

In the 1980s and early 1990s, there weren’t as many “educational toys.” Toy companies were using big brand names, TV shows or ads directed to children. The fun, new, battery-powered technology often sold itself.

However, parents and childhood professionals started to notice that these toys resulted in less creative play. Kids were simply observing the toy or playing with it only in the way it was designed.

Parents also became concerned that their children were becoming rampant consumers, and current toys somehow always prompted them to buy more toys. They began to criticize the toy industry, and so the “educational toy” was born.

Are Educational Toys Actually Educational?

Parents wanted toys that their children could actively play with, but they didn’t get that.

Instead, they got a plethora of gadgets with buttons, flashing lights, and songs that teach children how to push a button and not much else.

Anything that exposes a child to colours, letters, or numbers can be marketed as an educational toy, but if it’s not well-designed or developmentally appropriate, the toy isn’t going to teach your young child anything.

How To Find Real Educational Toys For Your Kids

So, what really makes a toy beneficial for development? Here is what I look for.

Developmental-Appropriateness

The best toys meet a child where they’re at. If your child is playing with something above their developmental level, they aren’t going to learn much from it.

A baby can’t use blocks but can benefit from a mobile. A toddler isn’t going to learn anything about letters from a light-up toy, but they can learn from using a shape sorter. A preschooler isn’t going to learn how to read from an electronic book, but they can learn literacy skills through pretend play and telling stories.

Flexibility for Open-Ended Play

Developmentally-appropriate toys also leave room for creativity. These open-ended toys are often much cheaper and more flexible for both younger and older children.

Toys like blocks that come in many shapes, sizes, and textures are great for early exploration. You can play with blocks outside in the dirt, in the bath, or alongside animals, dolls, or cars. Blocks prompt play partners to use position vocabulary like “up” and “down,” and of course, children can expand their block play to involve ever more complex pretend play and storytelling.

This type of toy is unlike most electronic “educational” early literacy books and tablets that provide lots of stimulation but quickly become dull and repetitive for most children who are ready for more creativity.

Encourages Active Play

Active play is when children need to actively participate in order to have fun. Active play often involves utilizing their senses, moving their body and objects in a variety of ways, problem-solving, and/or communicating with a play partner.

Many toys that are marketed as educational don’t require any active learning from a child. Instead, children can passively enjoy watching, observing, or repeating the same movement (e.g., button pushes). 

This very rarely helps children apply what they learn to the real world. Children aren’t going to see buttons with the letter “A” and a pixelated apple on a screen outside of these passively play situations.

Using simple toys like blocks, puzzles and books with the alphabet encourage children to actively use their mind as they communicate and creatively solve problems. 

Promotes Social Interactions

The best toys help children form positive relationships as they develop social and play skills. Children can have positive interactions during play when they can explore and collaborate. They also learn that working together makes play more enjoyable.

Toys that are highly stimulating and only allow for a single operator at a time can be detrimental for children who are just learning how to share. They’ll have to completely relinquish a toy to another child in order to play “together.” This skill isn’t learned at a young age — so you don’t need to force it. Having two of the same toy is often a great way to foster collaboration, but only if kids can also use those toys creatively to play together. 

It’s also beneficial for children to gain experience communicating with a play partner about their desires and ideas, integrating others’ ideas, and negotiating what and how they will play. Flexible toys like toy cars, dolls and blocks are best for this since they do not have a set storyline or way of playing with them.

An SLP’s Toy-Buying Guide

Here are the general rules we follow when buying toys for the clinic.

➢ Avoid most toys that light up and/or make sounds at the push of a button. If you have one or two, that’s enough!

➢ Battery-powered toys should require the child to communicate to operate (e.g., an adult has to wind up a toy, or the child has to talk into the microphone).

➢ Choose general figures (e.g., generic dogs) over specific characters (e.g., Paw Patrol).

➢ Choose toys with multiple similar pieces or buy two toys so we can model new ways to talk and play without taking a toy from the child (e.g., puzzles, pretend food, blocks).

➢ Choose games that allow for quick back-and-forth turns for young children that are just learning cooperative play.

Need More Support?

Decoding toy labels and ensuring your child is developing normally can be confusing. An SLP consultation can help you discover developmentally appropriate activities, games and toys for your little one. It’s almost always covered by insurance. Schedule a session here.