Untrained Housewife

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Choosing Toys for Kindergartners: Think L.E.A.P.S.

By

Carolyn Jaynes is a Learning Designer for LeapFrog Enterprises, specializing in language and literacy development. She earned her doctorate in educational psychology at Michigan State University where she was a researcher and professional development consultant for the Center for the Improvement of Early Reading Achievement (CIERA).

Choosing Toys for Kindergartners

The great thing about Kindergartners is that they can find a way to have fun and learn from just about any toy. At the same time, children this age are growing in ways that can be reinforced with certain kinds of play.  As a parent, you can use the acronym L.E.A.P.S. to remember how educational toys can encourage your child’s development in five important areas:

Language Development

Kindergartners are expanding their vocabularies every day and building their abilities to use and understand language. Anything that encourages your child to role-play or have fun with words can foster language development. This includes toys such as puppets, tea party sets, and pretend microphones, but it also includes items you may have around the house like dress-up clothes, voice recorders, and old phones or calculators—I remember spending hours playing merchant with my dad’s old adding machine and discarded memo pads. And don’t forget the books! No toy box is complete without a selection of books that spark the imagination and build word knowledge along the way.

Exploration

Kindergartners love to explore. As they head outside, children can learn to make observations, gather information, and recognize patterns in what they see. Providing children with child-friendly magnifying glasses, binoculars, or cameras can encourage them to make close observations, document their findings, and collect information that will help them understand the world around them.

Activity

Kindergartners are on the move. In fact, at this age, children can enjoy active play for longer periods of time. Of course, there are plenty of games and activities that get kids skipping and jumping without toys, but adding balls, jump ropes, and riding toys can add to the fun. And don’t forget old favorites like Twister and Hula Hoops.

Problem solving

Kindergartners are developing improved hand-eye coordination, learning about spatial relationships, and building patience. Toys that include puzzles or mazes prompt children to learn through trial and error. Interlocking manipulative toys and building sets encourage children to sort objects and consider multiple approaches to construction.

Self-expression

Finally, Kindergartners are discovering new forms of self-expression. As children learn to recognize changes in musical pitch and tempo, toys with keyboards and drums can foster creativity and build on their improving abilities to move smoothly and rhythmically to music. Providing an easel—or just plenty of paper and markers—encourages children this age to express themselves with art that is becoming increasingly creative and realistic.

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REQUIRED: Leave a comment sharing your favorite hands on learning activity and be a subscriber to Untrained Housewife (via email or feedreader – icons in sidebar) and you’ll be entered to win a LeapFrog Tag Reader! Leave comment entry by 11:59pm October 1, 2010

Extra entries (Leave a comment for each):

About Angela England

Angela England has written 562 posts in this blog.

Founder of Untrained Housewife, Editor-in-Chief of Blissfully Domestic (http://blissfullydomestic.com), mother of five, wife of one, and God-seeker always.

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Comments

  1. We’re really big on self-expression through music here at our house. The kids have all sorts of instruments they dabble with and I find them making up songs all the time. They’re pretty good too!

    I love the L.E.A.P.S. acronym. I’ve got to write that down. What a great way to remember each item. I might even share it with my children’s kindergarten teachers.

    I’d love to win a LeapFrog Tag Reader. My kids love LeapFrog products!

  3. i have 3 boys and from day one tried to incorporated music, dance, reading, dress up etc. we go on daily walks to explore our world, and i am amazed at how much they learn from daily activities.

    my guys are not in kindergarten yet but i think L.E.A.P.S applies to them.

  4. We love cooking together for hands-on learning! Lots of counting when we measure ingredients and lots of following directions, not to mention all the letters on the packaging.

  10. my almost 4 year old loves flashcards. We just got her a tag reader for her bday and we want to get another reader for our other daughter who will be 3 in november. Both of them are very much intrested in books so we are very excited. I’m also loving the maps book can’t wait til she opens it.

  11. I just subscribed to your feeds and added you to my Google Reader:) I really like making alphabet letters out of playdoh. My daughter enjoys it too and the making playdoh ropes is also good for fine motor.

  15. Sometimes we will take our daughter on little scavenger hunts in the backyard. We look for bugs, flowers & plants, etc with a magnifying glass and look up things if we don’t know what it is.

    I am an email subscriber

  20. Hmmm, that’s a tough question! My son is 3 1/2 and he loves to stamp and play with play dough. It’s fun to teach him how to make various things with the dough!

  23. My kindergartener loves to learn! She loves being read to, playing dress up, using her imaginiation! She also loves to point things out as we walk or drive past them and then demands we give her all the information we possess on said item 🙂

  25. Our favorite hands on activity is actually puzzles. My daughter is getting really good at them.

    I subscribe to your feeds. Trisha71478 at gmail dot com

  30. I love giving the kids a camera to take pix with we get to see our events from their view it is really neat
    So taking pictures would be my favorite for the kids
    Email Subscriber

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