Kiddipedia
Is your child learning or simply mesmerised by the flashing lights?
Active vs Passive Participation in Play
How does your child play with their toys?
Here is an activity for the parents: Make a cup of tea or coffee, sit nearby and watch your child play.
Children are sensory learners; they are equipped and geared to learn by exploring, examining and experiencing. When children are participating in an activity, their senses are being fuelled by sights, sounds, smells, tastes and touch.
They are developing cognitive skills, problem solving skills, logical thinking skills, social skills, motor skills, speech and language skills while expressing creativity and building their imaginations!
There are so many toys available for parents that are marketed as educational or developmental and it can be overwhelming to choose the right ones.
There are toys that may recite the ABCs and 123s at the push of a button, but are these really the best choices for our children?
Going back to the parent activity… Does your child simply observe their toy or do they interact with it? Is it just entertaining them or does it initiate a curiosity and engage them?
What is the difference?
A child who actively participates in play will have to interact with the toy (other than push a button) to be able to learn from it and enjoy it. For example: pushing a wooden dump truck along the floor and tipping it’s contents of blocks onto the carpet.
A child who is passively participating in play with a toy may be entertained, however, they are typically sitting back and observing the toy. For example: watching an electric 
train go around and around the tracks while singing a song.
Toys that motivate your child to actively partake in play will encourage them to invent their own experience, make mistakes, have the satisfaction of success when they try again. They also allow your child to act out a life situations to make meaning out of their experiences.
We have all heard of “the kids preferred to play with the box rather than what was in it”. If this is the case, encourage creative play by becoming a robot, an astronaut or by building a car or castle. They can colour a box, paint it, snip it, glue bits onto it. A box can be worn on their head, worn on their feet or strapped to their back. They can play with a box alone, with a teddy or with a couple of friends. There are no rules and no limits!
Passive toys (that need YOU to make them work) build active minds and bodies! Busy toys (with flashing lights and noise) create passive observers. Our children have so much opportunity to grow, learn and thrive through interaction with their toys. Are we going to let them be spectators or contenders?
Our 52 Piece Organic Farming Set offers many opportunities to develop cognitive skills, logical thinking, social skills, fine motor skills, creativity and language and speech.
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