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What Are the Educational Benefits of Our Wooden Toys?

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 18:04:26 +1200

Toys are a fundamental part of a child's life. They are critical for physical, emotional, intellectual and social interaction. At the Wooden Toy Store we pride ourselves on sourcing timeless and enduring wooden toys and puzzles that help children get the best start in life. Our wooden toys will encourage and stimulate a young child in the following vital areas of brain development:

Problem solving

Problem solving wooden toys help young children learn to work toward achieving a goal and gain confidence in their ability to work things out for themselves.

Problem solving is at the heart of the thousands of basic decisions we make every day. Young children who learn to figure out solutions to their problems develop curiosity, patience, and have an enhanced ability to work and play with others. The ability to solve difficult situations will also build positive self-esteem and self-confidence. In addition, young children will develop essential ‘thinking' skills such as flexibility and an understanding of ‘cause and effect' relationships, when they are faced with a wooden puzzle, game, or challenge.

Creativity and Imagination

Creativity is the ability to see things in a new way, to see problems that no one else may even realize exist, and then come up with unique and effective solutions. Standard intelligence tests measure the ability to come up with a single correct answer. But creativity involves the ability to come up with new and unusual answers.

Imagination is the ability to remember, dream, create, improvise and, in the process, entertain oneself anywhere and anytime. Imagination is important because it integrates a child's feelings and dreams and actions. It's a place where a child can experiment and feel control and power. Not only does imagination help a child deal with emotions more effectively, it also helps a child handle problems. Research shows that a child with a developed imagination has a greater ability to deal with stress and upheaval.

Creative wooden toys and puzzles help children develop their senses by exploring colour, texture, shape, and form whilst imaginative wooden toys boost a young child's ability to think and understand the world.

Stimulating senses

Stimulating wooden toys encourage a young child to look, listen and touch.

Helping to develop a young child's senses will help him or her make sense of the world – the senses will eventually lead to being able to do things like reading, writing and counting. Wooden toys that encourage children to look, listen and touch are great for providing a greater understanding about their environment. For every experience a young child has, a new pathway is signalled to his or her brain. And the more a child's experiences are reinforced, the faster he or she will develop the senses. Young children are naturally drawn to bright colours, intriguing sounds and different textures. And this stimulation of senses is, in fact, vital for intellectual development.

Hand to eye coordination

Wooden toys that encourage hand to eye coordination help children to use their eyes to direct attention to a task, and to use their hands to effectively execute the task.

From penmanship to tying a shoelace, hand to eye coordination is a very important skill. It's something young children will use every single day for the rest of their lives. Studies have shown that spending time on hand to eye coordination activities improve a child's ability to learn to read and lessen the difficulty a child will face during the process.

Wooden toys designed to encourage manipulative play such as grasping, aiming, tracing, digging, and fitting pieces together all boost hand to eye coordination. Jigsaw puzzles are very good hand to eye coordination developers, as are wooden blocks or tower toys that encourage playing and coordination. These toys help children learn what items can fit on top of each other and which ones will stack easily.

Social skills

Social wooden toys help a young child learn how to make friends and enjoy company.

Social skills enable children to cooperate, have their needs met, communicate effectively, be happy, and have fun. In addition to being generally agreeable and well attuned to the social context, socially competent children are responsive and able to mesh their behavior with the behavior of their play partners. Important social skills include daily interaction skills such as sharing, taking turns, and allowing others to talk without interrupting. Children with good social skills are more likely to be popular and less frustrated.

Wooden toys that encourage sharing and show the benefits of cooperation are key tools for building social skills.

Learning to read and write

Wooden toys that encourage shape and sound recognition and involve matching pictures with sounds, letters and words are a great foundation for learning to read.

Hearing favourite stories, looking at word and picture books, playing with interactive books and talking about reading all help children want to read for themselves. Each child reaches their own stage of 'reading readiness' when their ability to recognise shapes and sounds, concentrate, communicate, and other early learning skills really come together.

Writing is a key skill, which enables children to express themselves and succeed at school. Good writing skills start to develop years before a child writes their first words. A child needs many early learning skills to start writing. At three or four, groundwork such as shape-recognition, copying and tracing patterns is useful.

Toys that encourage copying, precision drawing and word recognition are fundamental in the 'pre-writing' stage. Toys that motivate and reward accurate letter and word copying and making writing practice fun are useful later on.

Instilling confidence

Confidence is essential for every kind of learning and activity. Confidence helps children become cooperative, communicative, keener to try new things, and feel happy whatever they're doing.

Wooden toys carefully designed to reward effort and encourage success are great tools for instilling confidence.

Discovering the world

Discovering the world as a fascinating place is a crucial basis for intellectual development, and enjoyable and successful school years. From around three-years-old children start expanding their horizons. They have a natural curiosity and an urge to understand their world.

Wooden toys that satisfy their natural curiosity and engage their attention encourage children to find out more. They enable young children to discover new animals, people, places and countries.

Fine motor skills

Wooden toys and puzzles which encourage fine motor skills will help children use their hands for precise movements.

Fine motor skills are those that require a child to manipulate and gain control over a range of materials and tools. Fine motor control requires awareness and planning for the execution of a task. The development of fine motor skills is crucial to a young child's ability to experience and learn about the world and thus plays a central role in the development of intelligence. These skills are also the first step towards learning to write, draw, thread and trace. Fine motor skills can be boosted by (for example) holding crayons or brushes, using scissors, placing with precision, and selecting small objects.

Physical development

Wooden toys which encourage physical development will help a young child develop coordination, balance and strength.

From birth, babies express their feelings through their bodies, and strive to move. As they grow, young children improve coordination simply through practice. Physical play teaches children to judge distances, understand scale, and become aware of the space they and others occupy. Children who enjoy lots of physical play are likely to be strong, healthy and confident

Toys that encourage young children to reach, stretch, pat or wave, and children to run, jump, climb and balance, all help physical development.

This article was written by the Wooden Toy Store Team. Please feel free to use it in it's entirety with the inclusion of the Wooden Toy Store as the author and a link to www.woodentoystore.co.nz

How Magnetic Wooden Letters Can Help Your Child Learn to Read

Sat, 04 Oct 2008 19:24:50 +1300

Benefits of Magnetic Wooden Letters

Sorting magnetic wooden letters on a fridge or white board is a valuable early reading skill for young children. When children read, they have to skim across a line full of words and quickly see similarities and differences in groups of letters. By allowing the child to sort magnetic wooden letters from an early age they gradually build up their knowledge of letters, which way they go, and how they are the same or different.

How To Sort Magnetic Wooden Letters

As speed is a key element in the differentiating progress during reading, it is always a good idea to get them to sort the wooden letters as fast as possible. This is easy to achieve if you turn the game into a race and especially if they often get to "win."

When you begin the games, encourage the child to use both hands and drag the wooden letters across rather than pick each letter up and place it. This is a much slower method and does not encourage fast eye discrimination.

Start with a manageable group of wooden letters in the middle of the board, either all lower case, all capitals or a mixture of both. This can be varied from time to time. Always begin with the letters up the right way as this allows the child to see which way they go as it will be quite some time before they can get them around the right way for themselves.

With young children you can start by sorting up high for you and down low for them, or your side/my side. When the wooden letters are put back into the middle, show the child how you put the letters around the correct way before sorting again.

The magnetic wooden letters can be sorted in the following ways:

1. By colour. (once you notice the child grouping blocks or toys in this manner by themselves).

2. By size. (capitals/lower case).

3. By shape. round shapes (a, e, c, o), straight lines (t, l, h), straight lines and circles (b, d, p, q), and diagonal lines (w, y, x, v, z).

They will then be ready to sort groups of like letters. Start with letters that look quite different such as (l, a, z, m) and put about 6 of each of these in the group. Place the group about eye height with all letters around the correct way.

The child chooses a letter (eg: m) and then quickly drags each of the remaining m's down to the bottom of the board making a rough pile. They then choose the next letter and so on. Get the child to draw all the letters down until there are none left. Don't worry if the letters in the groups do not end up the right way around at first as the child's co-ordination may not be too well developed and speed at seeing likenesses and differences is the important thing.

Try our Fun Factory Magnetic Letters with your child!

This article was written by the Wooden Toy Store Team. Please feel free to use it in it's entirety with the inclusion of the Wooden Toy Store as the author and a link to www.woodentoystore.co.nz

Why Wooden Blocks Are Good For Creative Play

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 16:02:17 +1300

Benefits of Open Ended Activities

In our society today many children are spending a considerable amount of time in the adult-led areas of structured educational and recreational activities, as well as watching TV and playing video games. As a result, this leaves little time for the non-structured creative, open-ended, self-initiated play.

With the design of many commercial toys today which have limited applications, the children's ability to think for themselves is being restricted. Many will only be willing to follow the instructions or build things that are illustrated, rather than using their creativity and imagination to construct an object of their own design.

However, open ended toys like wooden building blocks allow children to be creative and also to think outside the square. Open ended play is also aimed at fostering their ability to solve more divergent problems.

Open ended activities are ones in which there is just not one answer to a problem. There is no "correct" answer as such, but in fact there may be more than one answer or way to do something. This allows the child to have the freedom to try things, run with ideas and to be comfortable in exploring alternatives. Open ended play activities allow children to make mistakes and to learn from their mistakes in a non-threatening environment.

In open ended activities, the results may be different every time the child attempts the activity and, thus, it is more engaging for them. The child will learn and experience new things through their imagination in dealing with the play material.

Improving Development

Wooden blocks help children in many areas of their development. They can help to develop:

Imagination (requires creative thinking on the child's part)
Cognitive skills (using planning, strategies and problem solving to reach a goal)
Visual discrimination (recognition of differing shapes, sizes and colours)
Spatial awareness (a knowledge of objects and oneself in a given space)
Fine Motor skills (develop co-ordination and dexterity)
Experimentation (freedom to try, adjust, redo to come up with solutions)
Independence (the child learns to direct the play for themselves)
Vocabulary enrichment (when talking through their play with an adult)
Creative story making (where stories have a beginning, a middle and an end)
Maths concepts (counting, shapes, patterns, order, length, weight and height)
Co-operation (through sharing blocks and ideas as well as packing up)

Economical

Wooden blocks are very economical toys. They are very durable and will not break or malfunction and can be used by multiple age groups within the family.

Developmental Stages

Unlike toys with limited options where the child will only play with them until boredom sets in, wooden blocks will be used by children in different ways throughout their many developmental stages. In their first year they will enjoy stacking the blocks and enjoying the noise as they come crashing down. In subsequent years as their imagination develops, the blocks will become railway or car tracks and later they will develop into zoos, farms or playgrounds. Older children will experiment with geometric patterns and develop their problem solving abilities by creating more complex structures.

Have a look at our fabulous Plan Toys 50 Wooden Blocks, Pintoys Fancy Blocks or Kobba Multi-Unit Blocks - 40 Pieces.

This article was written by the Wooden Toy Store Team. Please feel free to use it in it's entirety with the inclusion of the Wooden Toy Store as the author and a link to www.woodentoystore.co.nz

The Benefits of Wooden Toys

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 21:29:15 +1300

We love wooden toys here at the Wooden Toy Store. And here are six reasons why:

1. DURABLE: Wooden toys are far more robust than plastic toys - they will withstand all kinds of rough play and are less likely to crack or break. Given that wooden toys tend to last much longer than plastic toys, their cost over the longer term is much less than you might think.

2. MEMORIES: Wooden toys will last for years and can be handed down from child to child. This means that, in the long run, wooden toys are a great alternative to endlessly replacing plastic toys that have been broken. Wooden toys gather family stories and build up memories. When your children have outgrown their toys, it will be the wooden toys you will keep to give to your children for their children. What a lovely feeling when your grandchild pulls out one of your old wooden toys to play with!

3. CRAFTSMANSHIP: Most wooden toys are handmade and therefore depict a high level of craftsmanhip. Plastic toys generally do not depict any creativity by hand. The level of quality, creativity, and inspiration contained in wooden toys makes plastic toys an inferior choice.

4. NATURAL AND WARM: Wooden toys have a warmth and natural beauty that provides young children with an irreplaceable sensory experience. It has a living energy that a child can respond to.

5. ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY: Plastic toys tend to come apart and break and needlessly become long-term landfill residents, rather than being passed down to following generations. Wooden toys are also generally made from replenishable and sustainable sources of wood.

6. PROMOTES UNSTRUCTURED PLAY: Wooden toys inspire inventive and truly imaginative play in children. This is due to the versatility inherent in most wooden toys, as compared to the lack of unstructured play required by their beeping and whirring plastic counterparts. Educational wooden toys build critical lateral thinking and problem solving skills and help build fine motor skills in young children.

This article was written by the Wooden Toy Store Team. Please feel free to use it in it's entirety with the inclusion of the Wooden Toy Store as the author and a link to www.woodentoystore.co.nz

10 Personal Skills that will Prepare your Child for Starting School

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 21:39:33 +1300

10 important personal skills to teach your child in preparation for school are:

1. How to dress him/herself. This will include how to put on and take off jumpers, hats, raincoats and painting smocks.

2. How to put on and take off shoes and socks. Velcro fastenings are always useful until your child can do up laces.

3. How to go to the toilet independently. This will include flushing the toilet as well as washing and drying hands. It is also a good idea to explain to them why it is not a good idea to play in the toilets. This is often a tempting place to play when there are a lot of friends around and it is out of the teacher's view.

4. How to blow their nose correctly and not sniff or wipe their hand on their sleeve!

5. How to choose between recess and lunch food. In the beginning it is always a good idea to have these packaged separately and in easily identifiable containers. The child will also need to know how to:

Open and close their lunch box and undo food wrapping.

Open and, in particular, securely close their drink bottle. Many bags have gone home a soggy mess when children are unable to screw the lids tightly on their bottles.

Know which food to select first – sandwiches, then fruit, then goodies (if these are included.)

Place their rubbish in a bin and not leave it on the seat or throw it on the ground. This skill actually needs to be taught as the children are usually used to mum or dad cleaning up for them after a meal.

Put their lunch boxes and bottles away. This will usually be in a communal lunch basket or back in their bags. If it is in the class basket, the child will need to recognise their things easily so that they can be put back in their bag after lunch. A coloured sticker and large name can help here.

It is always a good idea to practice the recess and lunch routines for a few weeks before school begins.

6. How to recognise and look after their belongings. It is essential to label EVERYTHING, even lids of bottles and lunch boxes. Always assume that anything that can be lost, probably will be lost at some stage. Large print in permanent texta not only makes it easy for the child but also for the teacher as well.

7. How to ask for help both in the classroom and in the playground and how to indicate to the teacher if they are not feeling well. Also learn the correct way to ask permission to go to the toilet and not to wait until it is too late.

8. How to ask for things at the canteen and pay for them. It is a good idea to allow the child to practice this when shopping with mum and dad. A secure method of storing the money is also needed as it is very upsetting for little children to lose their money when they are looking forward to a treat.

9. How to tidy up after themselves - clothes, belongings, pencils, books, toys and mess from art and craft activities.

10. How to share, take turns and politely ask to join in a game or activity.

This article was written by the Wooden Toy Store Team. Please feel free to use it in it's entirety with the inclusion of the Wooden Toy Store as the author and a link to www.woodentoystore.co.nz

Developmental Milestones and Toys for a 1 Year Old

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 14:28:56 +1300

When choosing wooden toys as gifts or presents for a 1 year old, it is important to keep in mind the following developmental milestones:

LEARNING

Stacks objects (Plan Toys Stacking Rings or the Pintoy Happy Stacker).
Places objects inside one another.
Tries to put on or take off lids.
Manages to place circle into a shape sorter (Shape Sorting Cube).
Drops toys or objects intentionally and repeats and watches where they go (wooden blocks are perfect).
Enjoys listening to stories and turning pages, often in random order or a few at a time.
Enjoys music, rhythm and rhymes.
Explores new objects by transferring from hand to hand, feeling or poking with one finger.
Notices colour (Wonderworld Rainbow Sound Blocks)

LANGUAGE

Shows definite understanding of words
Will use a mixture of speech sounds, real words and gestures to get and hold attention.
First spoken words are usually a person or well known object such as mum-mum/dad-dad/shoe/milk.
Knows own name.
Understands simple instructions such as "clap hands."
Names prominent body parts such as nose, eyes, toes, belly button.
Attends to pictures when named.

IMAGINATION

Shows affection by hugging people or a doll or a Teddy.
Begins to mimic actions such as covering eyes while playing "Peek-a boo."
Plays fetching games with adults.
Offers food to other people or toys.
Understands the use of objects and can pretend to use them, such as wash face with a washer or brush hair with a hairbrush.

PHYSICAL

Pulls to stand up, crawls rapidly, walks around furniture or walks alone with an unsteady gait.
Crawls up stairs. With an increase in mobility it is important to "child proof" the house to minimise accidents.
Points with the index finger.
Has a precise pincher grip to pick up small objects or food.
Can stir a spoon in a cup.
Will drink from a cup and feed themselves, even if it is very messily.
Co-operates during dressing by staying still or holding out an arm or a leg for the clothes or shoe.
Can roll a ball.
Starts to put marks on paper with a crayon.

SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL

Is developing bonds of love and trust with family members .
Can be apprehensive with strangers.
With some children separation from a parent can cause anxiety and they can appear "clamped to a leg."
Starts to show independent behaviour and understands that the meaning of "NO" is a prohibition.
Waves goodbye.
Begins to imitate activities like nodding the head or tapping with a hand.
Begins to respond to requests such as "Come here."
Gives toys to other people on request.
Uses gestures to convey meaning such as raising arm to be picked up.

This article was written by the Wooden Toy Store Team. Please feel free to use it in it's entirety with the inclusion of the Wooden Toy Store as the author and a link to www.woodentoystore.co.nz

Developmental Milestones and Toys for 2 Year Olds

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 21:19:46 +1200

When choosing wooden toys as gifts or presents for 2 year olds, it is important to keep in mind the following developmental milestones:

LEARNING

Listens to stories, turns pages and points out details in books.
Begins to look at books independently (try our Chelona Wooden Books)
Begins to recognise some alphabet letters especially those in their name (our ABC Touch Blocks are perfect to encourage early literacy)
Identifies body parts and their functions
Completes simple jigsaw puzzles (why not try our Chelona Puzzles?)
Stacks rings and wooden blocks. And enjoys knocking them down.
Begins to match and then sort shapes (our shape sorting cube will provide enjoyment for many years as the shapes get progressively harder)
Can sort and match by colour
Begins to count and understand the concept of 1 and 2
Identifies objects that are shorter or longer
Pouring and filling containers with water and sand

IMAGINATION

Begins make-believe play (why not view our wide variety of pretend play wooden toys)
Will watch and imitate the play of other children in a parallel manner
Will offer and share toys with other children but is still possessive of own belongings
Helps with everyday activities and imitates them in their play--giving Teddy a drink, having a tea party (our Wonderworld Tea Time Set is perfect!)
Begins to use objects for purposes other than what is intended -- use blocks for a load of hay in a truck
Talk to themselves or to their toys when playing creatively

LANGUAGE

Is able to use language to effectively get others to respond to needs and wants
Speech becomes more intelligible and vocabulary is continuously increasing at a rapid rate
Develops from 2 or 3 word sentences to more complete and complex sentences
Receptive language (what they understand) is significantly more than their expressive language (what they can talk about)
Able to follow 2 or 3 phrase commands
Uses plurals and begins to use "I" instead of "me"
Begins to use negative statements--- no, not, no more
Asks "What's that?" and then "Why" questions
Begin to repeat short poems and sing simple songs

PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT

Climbs stairs unassisted
Can balance on 1 leg, roll and jump up and down as well as forward
Can grasp and turn doorhandles, grasp crayons to scribble and will begin to interpret the drawing
Will begin to learn how to cut with scissors
Begins to throw a ball and catch it by clasping to the chest, and also kick a ball
Starts to take off clothes and to undo buttons and zippers
Uses feet to push riding toys
Toilet training may commence during the year

SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL

Likes routines
Starts to show independent behaviour and begins to use the "NO" word.
Can be impatient, unable to wait or take turns and displays temper tantrums when frustration levels rise
Making choices can be difficult as they often want it both ways
Physical aggression lessens as verbal and negotiation skills improve
Begins to show empathy for other people

This article was written by the Wooden Toy Store Team. Please feel free to use it in it's entirety with the inclusion of the Wooden Toy Store as the author and a link to www.woodentoystore.co.nz

Why Cooking With Your Child is Beneficial for Development

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 22:56:12 +1300

Your child's learning and developmental skills can be greatly enhanced by utilising everyday situations as they arise in the home environment. In this article we will talk about the way COOKING can be used to promote learning in a fun and non-threatening way.

Firstly, your child's READING can be encouraged by showing them the recipe and reading it out to them step by step as you go. This will illustrate that reading has a very useful role in our lives. You can point to the words in the recipe and explain that the words tell you what to get and how to make the cake. If you label some canisters, you can show them the words for flour and sugar etc. and explain that "brown sugar" has 2 words while "sugar" is only 1 word.

The LANGUAGE of your child can be expanded as you cook by discussing the many terms that you are using - measuring/filling/pouring/stirring/mixing/spreading/greasing/baking.

You can also discuss the different ingredients and why, for example, you put the flour in first. You can increase their decision making by asking them questions about what colour icing they would like or should we have plain scones or ones with fruit in them.

Your child's CO-ORDINATION can be aided by allowing them to crack the eggs, stir the ingredients, hold the bowl with one hand while stirring with the other, spoon out portions into patty pans, help pour the mixture into a pan, spread the icing and shake on the sprinkles.

There are also endless MATHS concepts to learn as you cook.

Count the number of spoonfuls as they are put into the bowl.
Count the number of muffin holes in the tin.
Count the candles/decorations as they are put on the cake.
Sort vegetables and fruit by colour and shapes. See our range of wooden fruit and vegetables here.
Discuss the terms full or half full.
Allow them to hear fraction terms ½, ¼, ¾ and see the relative sizes in the measuring cups or by cutting fruit in half.
Choose the right sized cake tin-small/middle sized/large.
Ingredients from the fridge are cold/ cooked cakes are hot. Allow them to feel the difference.
Set the timer and discuss how long before it buzzes.
Match lids to a variety of different sized bowls or pots.
Arrange measuring spoons/cups and bowls from smallest to largest.
Place 1 spoon in each bowl or 1 plate on each placemat or 1 cup on each saucer to help develop 1 to 1 matching which is a pre-requisite for counting objects accurately.

And, finally, the IMAGINATION of your child can be encouraged by using play cooking equipment and utensils, which allow them to mimic and play out everyday kitchen and cooking scenarios. Try our Wonderworld Kitchen Centre for make believe fun, the Plan Toys Fruit & Vege to use/cook in the kitchen, as well as the Plan Toys Tea Set for pretend tea parties.

Be aware of always looking for ways in everyday activities and play situations to develop your child's learning in the most natural and fun way as possible. By continually introducing them to new word, concepts and experiences their overall development will be greatly enhanced.

This article was written by the Wooden Toy Store Team. Please feel free to use it in it's entirety with the inclusion of the Wooden Toy Store as the author and a link to www.woodentoystore.co.nz

How Playdough can be an Educational Experience for Your Child

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 14:08:59 +1300

Making and playing with playdough at home can be an educational experience for your child.

While playing with your child, their LANGUAGE skills can be expanded if you try to introduce a new term whenever you play together. Terms such as roll, pat, squeeze, pinch, poke, pull, bang, cut, mix, twist, coil and spiral can be used. You could also make a few objects from a Nursery Rhyme and then sing the song.

Their CO-ORDINATION will also improve by rolling snakes with the palm of the hand and, as their co-ordination improves, by using a rolling pin. They can coil the snakes into a spiral or cut them up with a toy knife. They can use the dough to cut out shapes or squeeze the dough through a Spaghetti maker.

MATHS concepts can be developed with your child by making and copying patterns with cut-out dough, counting how many are made or counting the number of candles on the birthday cake. Colours can be talked about when matching the correct colour to the container in packing up time. Terms such as small, long, short, fat and thin can be used. Shapes can be discussed when they can make square fences for animals, round or circular pools for ducks, oblong shapes for trains, triangles for sandwiches and diamonds for Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

IMAGINATIVE PLAY can be developed by making the small, middle-size or large beds and bowls for the Three Bears, making animals for the zoo or any characters from their favourite books.

Why not use the Kobba Baking Set for the ultimate in playdough fun!

PLAYDOUGH RECIPE

2 cups flour

2 tablespoons cooking oil

4 tablespoons crème of tartar

1 cup salt

2 cups water

Food colouring

Mix all ingredients in a saucepan and stir over medium heat for 3-5 minutes until mixture congeals.

This article was written by the Wooden Toy Store Team. Please feel free to use it in it's entirety with the inclusion of the Wooden Toy Store as the author and a link to www.woodentoystore.co.nz

Early Reading Skills: How to Choose the Right Book for Your Child

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 15:20:34 +1300

Books are for enjoyment. Therefore, a good book is one that your child enjoys.
　
Why do we need to read to children frequently and from an early age?

To provide a special "togetherness" time for the child and the parent.
To allow children to enter the magical world of imagination.
To enrich their knowledge of the world and enlarge their vocabulary.
To teach "book language" which is different from spoken language.
To give the child print awareness in preparation for later independent reading.

What to look for when choosing books for children

It is important to choose from a wide range of books to allow the child to experience different types of text as each will provide different types of enjoyment for the child whilst providing essential book skills.

Books for Babies

Hard page/ cloth or plastic paged books that resist chewing. Simple clear pictures of everyday things or animals or other babies.
Novelty books to attract attention--sparkle books, pop up books, touch and feel, noisy books.
Black & white books.

Books for Toddlers

Stories that have a simple storyline that interests the child. The pictures should be fairly large and very clear and each page should have a small amount of text that relates directly to the picture. As the child's concentration increases the amount of text can be gradually increased.
Rhyming books such as Dr Seuss. The ability to identify rhyming words plays a big part in early reading later on by allowing the child to make links from the known to the unknown. So if the child can read cat, by changing the first letter they can read mat/sat/hat and later on much harder words such as splat. These skills are started by listening to the rhymes in these kinds of books.
Nursery Rhymes. These also rely on rhyming words and when they become very well known, allow the child to predict what rhyming word comes next. You will eventually be able to stop at the end of the line and the child will fill in the missing word.
Repetitive Stories. These are ones where the action is basically the same on each page but with a small variation, such as a different animal doing the action or a different person saying the same thing. The repetitive nature allows the child to understand the format and encourages them predict what is coming next. Prediction is a very important skill in reading as every time the child turns a page in a story they have to predict what the text will say by first looking at the picture and then making the story make sense with the letters that are on the page.
Classic traditional stories such as Little Red Hen, The Three Bears or The Gingerbread Man.
Counting books.
Animal stories to widen their knowledge of the world.
Humorous stories. Young children enjoy a slap-stick type of humour and the more you can overact and ham it up when you read it to them, the more they will enjoy it.
Books with pictures and no text. As the children's language increases they can begin to make up the story themselves . This allows them to gain skills of making up a story that matches a picture and makes sense. Very often you hear a child who is learning to read and reading things that make no sense at all and not even realising it, so these kinds of books encourage this important skill.
Homemade books. One photo or picture per page and simple text printed underneath and where possible using the child's name. Use simple sentences such as
This is Jack's bed.
Jack can swim. Or I can jump.
Here is a ball. Or This is my car.
Later on the children can draw their own pictures. The children really relate to these books as they are part of their own world.　
Telling stories. These can be based on known books or just from everyday activities. They will encourage the child to use their imagination and will also help to increase their attention span.

Things to remember when reading stories

If you really enjoy the story your child will enjoy it too.
Try to read at least 3 books a day.
Allow your child to choose their favourite book.
Re-read favourite books as the child will start to join in as they become familiar with the story.
Use lots of expression when reading to engage your child's interest and imagination.
Use loud and soft voices, growling voice for bears, cackling laugh for witches, drawn out words such as H-E-L-P!
Dad's make wonderful story tellers too.
Just occasionally at an interesting part of the story, such as when there are words in large print (eg: OH NO!) point to the words as you read them. This will direct the child's attention to the text so that they can begin to take notice of the letters and words.

This article was written by the Wooden Toy Store Team. Please feel free to use it in it's entirety with the inclusion of the Wooden Toy Store as the author and a link to www.woodentoystore.co.nz