"Tom come out from under that table! Why have you pulled the tablecloth down all on one side again?" My mother couldn't understand that the table had become a damp, rocky den filled with my imaginary animal friends; the same bear that roved through my bedtime stories might be sat eating berries with me on the dining room floor or I might be conversing wisely with a yellow eyed wolf about the state of the woods. But however far I had travelled into this imaginary dimension or how many ‘friends' I had with me, they all had to vanish before tea time along with the temporary cave, and I had to return to the ‘real' world. It would have been wonderful to be able to keep this world and return to it again and again but we didn't have the space or the money for permanent play dens back then.
In my childhood play was centred around what was immediately to hand, educational toys hadn't even been thought of at the time. If I was outside, mother nature provided trees to climb straight up to the crows nest of a ship in full sail on a rolling sea; long grasses and bushes were the shady depths where I, and my small gang of adventurers followed the tracks of wild creatures and made up games of daring do. In these games there was much call for dashing through scratchy barriers of bushes and nettles, many whooping jumps from high walls and much gritting of teeth against stings and cuts; safe ways of using our imaginations didn't come easily to hand. These days we put a lot of thought into how our children play; we want them to learn while they have fun and we want to know that their environment is safe for them. Toys can still take a child into another world but often price can limit our choice of what to buy. Also these days many parents are looking for environmentally friendly toys as most of us have an awareness of the cost to the environment of plastic and metal toys that are, lets face it, used for such a relatively short time.
So - safe, educational, eco friendly and affordable - can any toy fulfil all these needs while still stimulating a child's mind? How can we expect our children to dream up other worlds when they come complete in bubble wrapping? What parents and nurseries alike need is Eco friendly educational toys that help children relax with their own invented or real playmates, explore their inner worlds, investigate their own possibilities and learn together in the safe yet seemingly wonderful world of their imaginations.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Eco friendly educational toys that take us to other worlds
Friday, August 5, 2011
The world is filled with the delights of educational theme resources
So you think educational themes are only found in schools? Well you may have a very limited view of what an education is, since anything new to anyone can be considered to have an educational theme and everything anyone finds worth keeping as a treasured memory has one buried in it somewhere! For instance, you're travelling to see the Cheddar Gorge; is it part of a package holiday or even a day trip? Well any of these types of holidays worth their salt aim to inform their clients; so you could say that the coach itself is an educational resource, as well as the driver and the blue-blazered tour guide. The latter will be speaking to the travellers over a loudspeaker making sure that no one misses even one single piece of information. They will point out the goats grazing the National Trust side of the gorge and tell you that sheep are soon to be introduced on the Marquis of Bath's side. You will no doubt be informed in awed tones of the skeleton called Cheddar Man found there in 1903 and estimated to be 9000 years old and you may even be transported back to the melting glaciers of one and half million years ago by reams of geological facts. Your imagination may even be so well developed that you find yourself shivering as you ‘see' the permafrost seeping through the limestone or until your mind joins the icy waters eddying and swirling as it forms the very caves you now look upon in wonder.
Yes, our human guides can be thought of as educational theme resources in themselves but most likely you travellers will also be carrying smaller versions in the form of paper travel guides or even specialist books such as a naturalist's guide to British flora. This will enable you, once you have stepped on to the grassy slopes, to spot the Cheddar Pink or the Little Robin Geranium. You'll be able to point out with authority the difference between the grey whitebeam and the cheddar whitebeam and you will be able to stand under either of these and nod sagely, as if you had always known this fact. Those more interested in species that move of their own accord will pull out their own educational theme resources in the form of the RSPB Wildlife of Britain, accompanied perhaps by Collin's Complete British Wildlife, just to be absolutely sure. Then they will be certain to spot any of a dozen species rarely seen elsewhere such as yellow-necked mice, the small pearl-bordered fritillary butterfly or perhaps the grasshopper warbler.
The entire point to be realized from this is that the world is full of educational theme resources and if, as children, we were encouraged to develop our imagination through exploring our inner minds in play, we would certainly see learning as fun when we become adults. These resources are definitely not just earnest toys for young children or expensive equipment for older students but range from toys that produce more imaginative play, books for all ages and everything else that helps us learn and develop into well rounded individuals and students of the world who can see the entire universe as their university.