Games provide educational value even if they are not educational games so to speak if they are played at an age appropriate level. There are many components to a game and learning process involved in it including math, learning rules, social skills, and so on.
For toddlers, games and toys are great at assisting the kid learn basic motor skills as well as sharing and playing together. The best educational games and toys typically involve doing things and does not include playing video games. Toddlers can enjoy educational toys that involve building blocks to an overhead mobile. The mobiles assist with color recognition and highlight motion while giving the baby something to reach for. fun waiting room toys are great once your baby starts to crawl and walk.
Additional cool toys for this age range include letter and number cubes, stuffed animals, letters, and sounds as well. Later on when your kid reaches a toddlers age, kitchens with mock pots, pans, utensils and plates are great for them to interact with and learn.
While the toy kitchen is designed primarily for girls, boys have fun playing in the kitchen too. Books are a huge educational value to your children as well when you read to them. Educational toys do not always have to be toys at all as fingers, toes, and spoons can start the process of learning numbers.
When your child reaches school age, games become a little bit more developed and involve working as a team, sharing, learning rules, and numbers. A great game to start with for kids is Candyland and now there are vast options available. Games are terrific for families to bond together as well. Mini musical instruments can assist in children learning about music so that they gain interest in it. There are also the simplest of toys such as crayons and chalk for your child to draw and color. Toys like these allow the child to be creative and use their imagination and you don’t have to worry about them coloring inside the lines. Other games that provide educational value are Scrabble for Juniors, Dominoes, and Bingo are low cost and great for kids. And an added benefit is building social skills vs. building none while playing video games.
Games can become more complex and difficult as your kid gets older where they involve more strategy like Risk and Battleship. Chess and checkers are also great games that require a lot of thought and planning. Most of the games and toys mentioned are not designed to be educational games but are educational in the way that they involve many learning traits and can in fact teach more than education in some cases. As discussed, they teach sportsmanship, social interaction, language, math, strategic thinking, and patience as well.
