More Than Play
About the Play Skills
ANTICIPATION & PREDICTION
Awareness that things happen in a sequence is the beginnings of understanding order and what comes next. Anticipation & Prediction is an action or occurrence that happens over and over. By observing this repetition, the child expects that it will happen again. As children watch the action of a toy, they begin to recognize its pattern, and over time start to predict what will happen next. Anticipation and prediction is one of the foundations for developing problem-solving skills—once a child can predict future results, they may modify their play to solve problems. In addition, recognizing order and sequence is an important skill to develop. For example, to be a successful speller, children must understand that letters need to come in a specific order to make sense.
PLAYSKOOL toys like CHASE ME CRITTER and BUSY BALL POPPER may help your child develop a sense of anticipation & prediction.
BALANCE
Good balance is a critical skill—it not only helps children when they are up and active, but it also helps them sit still and gain better control of their bodies. In order to learn how to balance, children need to understand their relationship to gravity. To do this, they need to move in lots of different ways to activate the vestibular system, a series of fluid-filled canals situated in the inner ear on either side of the head. Some children who have poor balance development can become fidgety and have difficulty concentrating. Balance development is integral in a child’s development and is the basis for developing many skills such as concentrating on a task, sitting still in class or learning to ride a bike.
PLAYSKOOL toys like MUSICAL SIT ‘N SPIN and STEP START WALK ‘N RIDE may help children develop balance.
BASIC BODY CONCEPTS
A child learns about his world by first having a good understanding about his body and how it fits, moves and reacts in his environment. Recognizing and understanding body parts and what they look like contributes to a child’s understanding of his own self-image. Toys that have facial and body features help children develop an awareness of where these features are on the body of the toy, other people and themselves.
PLAYSKOOL toys like LULLABY GLOWORM and MR. POTATO HEAD may help your child learn basic body concepts.
BONDING & ATTACHMENT
Attachment to known things and people is vital for children to feel loved, safe and secure—and to grow and bond with the people around them. Attachment also teaches the understanding of responsibility and nurturing. Positive attachments to people as well as things play an enormous part in developing the security a young child needs. Children learn best when they grow up in nonstressful, loving, positive environments.
PLAYSKOOL toys like LULLABY GLOWORM may help your child make positive bonds and attachments.
CAUSE & EFFECT
“If I push this plunger, I can make the balls start popping!” “If I turn this knob, I can make a panda pop up!” Learning that actions cause reactions is a skill that children develop through trial and error. Once a child discovers this, he can learn to control what happens and that his actions influence the result. Playing with toys that rely on an action or force to initiate an outcome helps children learn this concept of cause & effect. Understanding cause & effect not only empowers children to control their play, it helps them learn how to figure out how lots of everyday objects work—from light switches to kitchen faucets!
PLAYSKOOL toys like ACTIVITY BALL may help your child to understand cause & effect.
CONCEPTUAL THINKING
The world is full of all sorts of useful and interesting information that children can’t experience directly. When children encounter these ideas, they have to use their imaginations and prior experiences to enhance their thinking. Making these connections allows them to think abstract thoughts that are based on what they already know. For example, children can’t directly experience the world of atoms, the concept of infinity or that dinosaurs once roamed the earth long ago! These ideas aren’t a part of their direct physical realities. However, by engaging in play experiences that include these ideas, children can experience and relate to abstract concepts, which ultimately may aid in their understanding of an idea. Conceptual thinking is a critical skill that children will use throughout their lives—whether they are learning about atoms and particles, doing complicated math problems or imagining life on other planets!
CONTROL OF MUSCLE STRENGTH
Children learn how much strength is needed to push, pull and manipulate things without visual input over time. Information located in their muscles, tendons and ligaments is continuously being sent to the brain about where the child is in relation to other things (position) and how much force to use (strength) to the brain. Over time, and with lots of play, children learn and improve these skills. Playing with toys that require children to push, pull and manipulate objects through, between and around the room help them learn about their own strength and how much force is required to move objects. Learning to control muscle strength makes it easier for children to sit on a chair without falling off, press on a crayon without breaking it and move around a room without banging into things or knocking things over.
PLAYSKOOL toys like POUNDIN’ BEDBUGS and BUSY TUMBLE TOP may help encourage your baby to crawl.
CRAWLING
Crawling is a fundamental movement skill. When babies crawl, they learn that their body has two sides and that each side can move independently. Coordinating both sides to work together helps develop important pathways between the left and right hemispheres (sides) of the brain. Crawling also helps babies build muscles, aids the development of gross motor skills, starts the development of spatial awareness and, when crawling around and over different obstacles, helps baby to discover different levels (depth and height perception).
PLAYSKOOL toys like WHEEL PALS and TUMBLE ‘N TWIRL TOP may help encourage your baby to crawl.
EYE TRACKING
When babies are first born, they can’t see very far, and their eye movements are often random and uncoordinated. For eye movements to become smooth, the muscles that move the eyes from one side to another need lots of practice following slow-moving objects. Watching objects move from side to side, and closer and further away, helps young children practice eye tracking skills, and develop eye fitness. Children who spend a lot of time in front of television screens and monitors, where their eyes are stationary, are especially in need of plenty of slow eye movements to develop good eye-tracking skills. Smooth eye movements are very important to learning future skills, like becoming an independent and fluent reader.
PLAYSKOOL toys like BUSY BALL POPPER and CHASE ME CRITTER may help children develop eye tracking skills.
FINE MOTOR SKILLS
Fine motor skills are the small, refined muscle movements needed to perform delicate tasks. Developing fine motor skills requires lots of practice doing things like picking up small objects, threading and pushing and pulling things apart. In order to develop fine motor skills, children need to first master gross motor skills (big muscle movements), build strong finger muscles and experience lots of different surfaces and textures. Exposing children to lots of tactile sensations through messy, gooey sensory play can help prepare them to develop fine motor skills. Fine motor skills are the foundation for a number of future skills, such as holding pencils and paintbrushes and knives and forks.
PLAYSKOOL toys like ACTIVITY BALL may help children develop fine motor skills.
FITNESS & STAMINA
A fit body is key to a fit mind! Children don’t get fit at the gym—they get fit when they’re bouncing, moving and playing. Fit children are typically able to stay on task for longer periods, better able to concentrate, are not as tired and are usually more motivated. Fitness may even help children build self-esteem and self-confidence—it’s easier to believe that anything is achievable when you feel great about yourself! Toys where children have a raised level of aerobic activity are excellent for developing fitness, health and confidence. Additionally, physical activity allows children to experience adrenaline rushing through their bodies. It is important for children to have adrenaline experiences so they may learn how to respond as an adult, when stress and split-second decisions need to be made.
FUNDAMENTAL MOVEMENT SKILLS (LOCOMOTOR SKILLS)
Fundamental movement skills allow the body to move from one place to another. These physical skills develop from simple to complex, and require hours and hours of trial and error to master. With practice, early skills like crawling, walking and jumping develop into more advanced skills like hopping, skipping and leaping. The more active a child is, the more likely they are to develop strong fundamental motor skills.
PLAYSKOOL toys like STEP START WALK ‘N RIDE and MUSICAL SIT ‘N SPIN may help children develop fundamental movement skills.
GROSS MOTOR SKILLS
Gross motor skills, or big muscle movement skills, develop before fine motor skills. Children develop their bodies from the center out—first they learn to control the head and upper body, followed by the trunk and arms, before they refine the movements of the hands and fingers. Experts call this Cephalacaudal (top to bottom) and Proximodistal (inside to out) motor development. Activities that encourage the use of large muscle groups are key to gross motor skill development.
PLAYSKOOL toys like TUMBLE ‘N TWIRL TOP and MIKE THE MOWER may help children develop gross motor skills.
HAND-EYE COORDINATION
Coordinating the hands and eyes to work together, or “hand-eye coordination,” is a skill that takes a lot of practice and refining. Good hand-eye coordination is a critical foundation skill—it is necessary for success in tasks as diverse as holding a pencil to write, painting and hitting a ball with a bat.
PLAYSKOOL toys like POUNDIN’ BEDBUGS and MRS. POTATO HEAD may help children develop hand-eye coordination.
IMAGINATION
There is no limit to imagination and where it may lead young thinkers! Imagination is the ability to form pictures and ideas about things, people or places without having experienced them directly. Imaginative thoughts are mostly based on memories of playing and enjoying many different life experiences. Remembering experiences develops a child’s visual memory. Visual Memory develops during play and is essential for learning to read as well as telling and writing stories later in development. Imagination is a foundation skill for “outside of the box” thinking. Sometimes, children who spend little time engaging in imaginative play experiences can find it difficult to initiate their own play. As a result, they may not enjoy playing alone, and may prefer to seek out an adult or another person to play with to stimulate their thinking.
PLAYSKOOL toys like MR. POTATO HEAD may help stimulate your child’s imagination.
LANGUAGE
Language is a complex skill that is learned and refined in many stages. In early stages of language development, children mimic mouth movements, and listen to and simulate sounds they hear. Imitating sounds teaches young children how to position their mouths, exercises important muscles around their mouths and helps them learn how to differentiate sounds. This is the beginnings of language development.
As children grow older, participating and enjoying music and movement helps a child learn new language because it is repetitious and the child experiences the language while hearing it at the same time. Singing and moving to music is a powerful learning tool.
Playing together with others is another important tool in language development. By talking while playing children talk about parts of the toy, their environment and discover conceptual language such as directions, forward, backward, up and down. Children also use and therefore learn important new vocabulary words and concepts. Since children need to learn concepts (for example, “top”) in a physical form before they can understand them symbolically (in written form), experiencing concepts through play is the best way to learn.
It is important to remember, repetition and experience are the keys to language acquisition—the more a word is repeated, the more likely it is that a child will understand it.
PLAYSKOOL toys like LULLABY GLOWORM may help children develop language skills.
MEMORY
Memory is our ability to remember information and experiences we come across in our daily lives. How we remember is complex, involving not just the brain, but the body as well. For instance, it is easier to remember when an experience is a sensory one—seeing, hearing, doing, tasting and feeling what happened will strengthen the memory. For example, smelling a favorite meal cooking can bring back memories of where you ate it, who you were with and events that happened around the same time. These sensory messages are recorded in the brain.
Once we learn something new, it’s important to rehearse the new experience and do it or say it over and over. This action strengthens pathways in the brain and makes it easier to recall. That’s why children often say “again, again!” or “more!” Being able to remember instructions, the order in which things come, patterns like counting and what comes next also need to be rehearsed. Some toys and activities can help children practice and build these memories by providing context for them to experience a concept. For example, counting to three out loud while pointing to three crayons can help children remember and understand that there are three real things (crayons). This in turn helps them to understand the “threeness of three” or the concept of three. Understanding is therefore enhanced for the child because you are making the concept real by using a visual cue, and reinforcing it with audio input by counting out loud. All of these cues can be brought together to help create a more meaningful memory.
Play also provides a powerful emotional and sensory context for new memories to form. Children can associate new information with the enjoyment of play, sight, sound and action. Talking while the child engages in the play can also help children remember new information. When children repeat something out loud, it helps them store the information in their memories. So getting kids to repeat what you just asked them to do may help them to remember and get the job done!
Above all, all of these sensory experiences aid in the creation of memory. Memorization is a skill that children will use in many of aspects of life—from recalling the alphabet to learning their home address.
PLAYSKOOL toys like BUSY POPPIN’ PALS may help your child practice her memorization skills.
MIDLINE DEVELOPMENT
The ability to make different movements with different sides and parts of the body at the same time is actually a learned skill that children develop over time. When children are young, they find it difficult to reach across the body with the right hand to reach something on the left, or vice versa. As they develop an awareness of midlines, children learn to make both sides of the body work together, and new pathways are made between the two hemispheres (sides) of the brain.
There are three midlines that run down the center of the body—one that divides left from right, one dividing top from bottom and one dividing front from back. Developing an awareness of midlines is important, as it allows children to start to coordinate movements on both sides of the body. Once midlines have been learned and developed, the preferred writing hand will begin to emerge.
PLAYSKOOL toys like STEP START WALK ‘N RIDE and MUSICAL SIT ‘N SPIN may help with your child’s midline development.
OBJECT PERMANENCE
As children grow, they start to understand that just because something disappears out of sight, it isn’t necessarily gone. When children understand that objects still exist, even when they can’t be seen directly, they understand “object permanence.” Children begin to learn about object permanence when they play games like peek-a-boo, put objects into other objects so they disappear from view, or find toys that have disappeared from view. An understanding of object permanence is the beginnings of prediction, curiosity and problem solving.
PLAYSKOOL toys like BUSY BALL POPPER and BUSY POPPIN’ PALS may help children develop a sense of object permanence.
PINCER GRIP
Picking up objects and learning to release them can be a tricky task. When children are young, they grab or rake at objects using their entire hand. As they refine their fine motor skills, they learn to pick things up with their first finger and thumb. Experts call picking objects up in this way a “pincer grip,” and it’s the very same skill that children are practicing when they pick up their toast and drop it over the side of their high chairs. Development of the pincer grip is an important fine motor skill and milestone, and is a foundational skill for many other precise skills, such as holding pencils and paintbrushes.
PLAYSKOOL toys like ACTIVITY BALL and FORM FITTER may help children practice the pincer grip.
PROBLEM SOLVING
Problem solving is an important acquisition for life—and it begins when playing. By allowing children to make their own decisions while playing, they begin to develop independent thinking and problem-solving skills, and begin to learn to understand the consequences—both positive and negative—of their choices. It’s important for children to learn to think for themselves so they can start to make their own decisions as they grow older.
PLAYSKOOL toys like MR. POTATO HEAD may help your child develop problem-solving skills.
ROLE PLAY
Children love to play make believe and imitate the actions of adults in their world. Experts call this “role play.” Children role play because it’s fun and they enjoy doing things big people do. Kids learn best when learning though experience and this means using the senses. By seeing, hearing, feeling, touching and tasting—in other words, “doing”—it allows little ones to engage all their senses in the learning process, which makes for more meaningful understanding. Role play is also a great way for children to learn new vocabulary because children are using particular vocabulary in the correct context and are learning new words. It also helps introduce them to new situations and responsibilities. Ultimately, role play contributes to developing children’s confidence in play, increasing their understanding about their world and the people in it. Role play can also contribute to building self-esteem, encourage children to develop emotionally by engaging other children and adults in their games, and hopefully contribute to preparing kids for real life roles and responsibilities.
PLAYSKOOL toys like DUSTY THE VACUUM and MIKE THE MOWER may help your child develop role playing skills.
SPATIAL AWARENESS
Children love to make objects and their bodies fit into and around spaces. When they do this, they are learning about space and how much of it they take up. This is called “spatial awareness.” Children need to gain an understanding of spatial awareness to figure out how to move themselves and objects around without knocking things over or banging into other things. When children try to move objects around and fit them into particular spaces, they also learn about the spatial concepts of “directionality” (which way things need to go) and “constancy” (the idea that even though a shape may look different when it is turned differently, it is still the same shape). Children with poor spatial awareness may be clumsy and often bump into things, or they may write above or below the lines, or with no spaces between words.
PLAYSKOOL toys like FORM FITTER and WHEEL PALS may help children develop spatial awareness.
TACTILE PLAY
Touch is the sense young children learn most from in the early years. The skin contains millions of sensory receptors, allowing young children to interpret countless sensory experiences every minute. These receptors allow children to learn about their world through texture and sensation. The experience of different textures on the skin sends information back to the brain and helps integrate the sensory system. Tactile play allows children to learn about size, shape, texture and length—information which may help them as they develop a sense of their bodies and space. Messy sensory play is also a foundation skill for fine motor development—as it helps children develop muscles in the fingers and hands.
PLAYSKOOL toys like LULLABY GLOWORM provide your child with tactile play.
TEMPORAL AWARENESS
Judging distance and time, what experts call “temporal awareness,” is a complex skill that takes a long time to develop and perfect, so it is important for children to start learning it as early as possible. When children have a good grasp of temporal awareness, they can estimate how fast objects travel—and coordinate their movements with the speed of an object. Temporal awareness is the same skill that children will use later when they’re judging the speed of cars before they cross the street or up to bat in their first Little League game!
PLAYSKOOL toys like CHASE ME CRITTER may help children develop temporal awareness.
TUMMY TIME
Awake tummy time and side lying are particularly important today since babies are encouraged to sleep on their backs (for SIDS prevention). Babies need to spend plenty of their awake time lying on the floor, where they are encouraged to roll to their bellies or sides to play. When children are in these positions, it encourages the development of muscle strength and growth. Spending time on the floor encourages babies to roll from their front to their back and then to lift their heads, which helps them develop strong neck, arm and upper body muscles. Developing these muscles is an important foundation for crawling, moving around the floor and other gross motor movements.
PLAYSKOOL toys like TUMMY TIME GYM may encourage your child to spend time on their tummies.
VISUAL DISCRIMINATION
The ability to sort and interpret visual information, or “visual discrimination,” is developed as children learn to see the differences in objects like shapes, people, toys and everyday things. As children encounter different objects and shapes, they learn to look for similarities and differences. For example, children learn to recognize that although chairs come in many different sizes, designs and shapes, they are all still chairs. Visual discrimination is an essential foundation skill when children learn to read and write, as they learn to distinguish between the different shapes of letters, for example, the difference between “A” and “a.”
PLAYSKOOL toys like the FORM FITTER may help children develop visual discrimination.
