Winter 2008

California Pacific Medical Center - California Pacific Medical Center Health Kids Newsletter
 

Play Is the “Business” of Children

Part 2 of 3: Toys that help your child learn

by Barbara Bennett, M.D., developmental behavioral pediatrician and medical director, Kalmanovitz Child Development Center at California Pacific Medical Center

Friedrich Wilhelm August Froebel, who developed the concept of kindergarten with structured activitybased learning, says, “Play is the highest expression of human development in childhood, for it alone is the free expression of what is in a child’s soul.”

Young children do not learn by words alone. They initially learn to talk by learning the names of objects and describing activities they are engaged in. By age five or so, a child knows what common objects are like, what they will do and what the child can do with them. The child learned these lessons through playing. As their level of play becomes more complex, children move from exploration and object play to language and symbolic play (pretend play).

Toddlers (18 months-3 years)

Toddlers amuse themselves with “parallel” play—when kids play next to, but not with, each other. Blocks with numbers and letters, cloth books, dress-up clothes and push-pull toys are great for toddlers. To help your toddler play:
  • Engage the child in conversation, explaining events going on around him.
  • Select safe toys that encourage creativity, remembering that ordinary objects can be “toys” (boxes, hats, pots and pans, etc).
  • Make time for play every day, including outdoor play.
Photo of Barbara Bennett, M.D.
Barbara Bennett, M.D.,
medical director, Kalmanovitz Child Development Center

Preschool (3-5 years)

At this age, children start engaging in more interactive play. Some ideas include:
  • Set up a pretend post office. Children can draw pictures for relatives and friends and mail them (or pretend to).
  • Use discarded boxes to build a pretend house. Drape a sheet to make a tent.
  • Set up a pretend grocery store.
  • Let the child take part in daily home activities such as cooking.

Kindergarten

By kindergarten, children are very involved in interactive play, sharing toys and taking turns in games. Great activities for this age include:
  • Simple card and board games.
  • Playdough, crayons, finger paints and watercolor paints.
  • Simple jigsaw puzzles and large building blocks.
Parents should keep an eye on young children as they play, but there’s no need to be a “helicopter parent”— hovering over the child at all times. It can be great fun for parents, though, to be actively involved in some of their children’s play.

To Learn More
This article discusses how toddlers, preschoolers and kindergarteners learn about the world around them through the “business” of play. To read the first installment on babies up to 18 months, visit www.cpmc.org/pediatrics and click on the news link for the January issue of HealthyKids.

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© 2007 StayWell Custom Communications