Playing is fundamental to child development!
It is through play that children develop their sensory, cognitive and motor skills and improve their child skills. They learn to live socially, explore and develop their creativity, work on their sensitivity and learn to communicate better, as well as get to know the world around them.
To this end, parents look for toys that adapt to each child's age, depending on the child's growth, without often realizing the difference between a pedagogical toy and an educational toy.
Both are important in child development, but what is the real difference between them?
Educative toys
Educational toys are a way of developing children's diverse skills while they play, in a trial-and-error concept but always in a fun and motivating way. To motivate children and maintain interest, they usually have very visually pleasing colors, different shapes and sounds. These are toys that do not depend on the monitoring and guidance of an adult, and the presence of an adult is always welcome to help the child.
Some examples of educational toys:
- Toys or devices with images and sounds of animals such as Timio;
- Building block (wooden or meli);
- Assemble and fit toys (Imanix, puzzles, educational games);
- Rattles;
- Musical or make-believe instruments (wooden kitchens, toy kitchen accessories, professional sets (doctor, makeup artist, hairdresser, mechanic, etc.).
Pedagogical Toys
Educational toys are more specific and aim to focus on a specific learning process and, therefore, always require the monitoring and guidance of an adult so that they can explain the game, the objectives and guide the child on how to play, play and interact.
Some typical examples of educational toys:
- Domino;
- Memory game with words;
- Spelling puzzles;
- Most of the best known games.
We hope that this article will be useful to you when choosing your toys :)
