The Benefits of Wooden Toys in Childs Play

From birth infants automatically begin to play - they learn from play and as much as it is a fun thing to do it is essential to their early development. By about the age of 12 months children have developed functional skills to play with objects in the environment. Toys are crucial to this next stage of development. Toys selected however do need to be able to stand up to a few knocks and drops and that is why wooden toys are superior in terms of durability for this stage in a child's development. Children can learn to build with wooden blocks; alphabet ABC blocks are great at this stage. Another great range of wooden toys suitable at around 12 months are pull along toys. The Big Jigs Build Up Train is a good example of a two in one wooden toy; the train can be stacked with blocks in different ways and then pulled along. It is important to remember this type of play is about learning and wooden toys can stand up to a fair amount of accidents - if a child is becoming a little frustrated when building with wooden blocks there is a brilliant range of magnetic building blocks by Brio that can provide hours of fun. Wooden toys with internal magnets fascinate children and can create some very imaginative formations that will surprise them.
As infants grow, wooden toys can come into their own - the Early Learning range of wooden toys provides a wide variety of toys that will aid child development whilst maintaining that all important sense of fun. Early learning wooden toys are suitable for children from around ages two to three and are intrinsic to establishing symbolic play - that is where a child can use an object to symbolize another. A child of this age may indeed pick up a wooden block (bought for them at an earlier age) and play with it for hours pretending it is a car. Symbolic play also comes with early language experimentation - it is fascinating watching children develop colourful fantasy stories in their play. The early learning ranges of wooden toys include such things as John Crane's Shape Matching Cake Stand - there is no end to the imaginary, fantasy play that this could generate. Tea parties for parents, teddies or friends. The matching process also encourages hand eye co-ordination and shape recognition. Wooden toys have an immense part to play in child development and as you can see have an abundance of benefits.