Educational Toys for Babies

We have a 10 month baby and we dont’ beleive in intro­duc­ing TV or com­puter stuffs to him at this age. We pre­fer him to learn the basic things.

We have a lot of home made toys for him. Gather a few plas­tic cups and put them up like a ris­ing tower. He enjoys it when he can push the cups down.

Got a milk bot­tle and put some rice and col­or­ful paper in it. He shake it and lis­ten to the sound. Put other items in dif­fer­ent bot­tle and he learn of other sounds.

This issue really sets me off. A set of blocks is edu­ca­tional for a tod­dler or preschooler. So is the col­lec­tion of pots, pans, and spoons. Or a mir­ror. Or two stuffed ani­mals who can have adven­tures together span­ning a whole host of things that a child is learn­ing about. Or (crazy idea) — a book. Most of the “edu­ca­tional” toys on the mar­ket are just plain ridicu­lous. Some­thing doesn’t become edu­ca­tional just because it has the abcs printed on it, and there’s a whole lot more to learn about life than let­ters and num­bers. In my opin­ion, most “edu­ca­tional” toys are a mar­ket­ing scam that do more harm than good, at least if they come in the place of more tra­di­tional and imag­i­na­tive toys. And I can tell you my kids have done great aca­d­e­m­i­cally in kinder­garten and beyond with­out them.

If you want a good argu­ment back to your co-workers, I rec­om­mend read­ing “Ein­stein Never Used Flash­cards” from your local library or book store.

1. Kinder­garten age and older.
2. I per­son­ally am not a fan. I see the com­mer­i­cal for Baby Eis­tein from time and time and laugh at the woman sit­ting on the couch with her baby watch­ing the pro­gram. Are you kid­ding me? You can’t think of any­thing bet­ter to do with your baby? Kids learn SO MUCH MORE by you inter­act­ing with them and develop skills A LOT faster.
3. 8ish. In today’s world, kids need to know how to use the com­puter and they’re hand writ­ing things less and less. I’m a teacher and over the last cou­ple of years I’ve been told more and more to have the kids type their home­work. The amount of time should be lim­ited though and par­ents should know what they’re doing on the com­puter.
4. What I con­sider “edu­ca­tional toys” are things that “inter­act” with a child. Some­thing that sings the alpha­bet, says the name of the num­ber when they push it, asks them to push, pull etc cer­tain col­ors etc. What I think is the most edu­ca­tional are sim­ple toys: dolls, blocks, paint etc. They allow a child to use their imag­i­na­tion, improve motor skills etc which is just as impor­tant as know­ing your let­ters and num­bers. Every­one has a dif­fer­ent opin­ion on what is edu­ca­tion and what isn’t. The lit­tle label on the box is just that: an opin­ion.
5. Tra­di­tional toys are more edu­ca­tional in my opin­ion for tod­dlers BY FAR. Your child is going to develop motor skills from a toys that teaches the alpha­bet but they will from scrib­bling with crayons or catch­ing a ball. They’re learn their num­bers much faster by count­ing blocks in their hand and build­ing with them than they will lis­ten­ing to some­thing count. I also find it hard to sit with my kid and play/interact with one of those toys. We live in an elec­tronic world.…but sim­ple toys are way bet­ter my opin­ion.
6. I read to my kids for 15-30mins a night. Some­times a lit­tle more dur­ing the day. My older two read for a lit­tle while longer on their own before the go to sleep.
Best Wishes =]

Books! Babies love to hear your voice, i dont care how old they are, its never too young to intro­duce them to books. Get the ones that have the tex­tures and fur that you can put their fin­gers on, and shapes and col­ors. You might think your baby is too young, but he isnt. Thats the best learn­ing tool as far as im con­cerned, a bouncy seat or swing is fun, but it doesnt teach any­thing, although they can observe their sur­round­ings, parent/child inter­ac­tion is the best for stim­u­lat­ing their minds.

I com­pletely agree with you.
Peo­ple don’t real­ize that these toys are actu­ally suck­ing the cre­ativ­ity out of lit­tle minds. Soon, all they can think of is Tickle Me Elmo and wait till the toy tells you what to do next. After all toys talk now, so the kid doesn’t actu­ally have to think of games and things to do, just wait to be told.