Children are known for the crazy things they come out with and all their creative ideas. But what causes them to do these things? The simple answer is: we do! The toys they play with, the people they talk to, and the things they see on television influence their behaviour, ideas and thoughts.
The imagination is part of what scientists call a child’s ‘cognitive development’. This term covers all aspects of thinking and imagining, processing information, reacting to their environment, and learning and remembering information. A child who has advanced or improved cognitive development will be more intelligent as they will find it easier to learn, and will have a better memory when it comes to retaining the information learned. A particularly imaginative child will also excel in the artistic subjects, such as art, music, English (more specifically creative writing), dance, drama, and design technology (such as textiles or woodwork) when they attend school.
I’m not a fan of sitting a child in front of the TV day-in-day-out and massively support the influence of traditional playtime instead. I like to look for toys that encourage a child to think outside the box or educational toys that a child will learn from while playing with them. Here are my favourites to feed a child’s imagination at playtime:
• Puppets – puppets encourage one of the most important aspects of children’s play: role play. By playing with a puppet, a child has to think up what the puppet might say, what they could be doing, where they might go or what they might like. Imagining these scenarios provides the building blocks for creativity and also helps with language development.
• Building toys – whether it’s a marble run, Duplo, Lego, or a pack of wooden blocks, they are for building and creating. Often, things like this have instructions so you can build specific items, but there is a lot of room for true inspiration and who knows, it may lead to your child inventing something new! There are lots of different building sets out there for all different tastes and ages so it won’t be hard to find something your little one will love.
• Pens and paper – this is possibly one of the easiest ways to let a child get imaginative. They can draw from memory, draw something they can see, or just scribble if they want, which can be useful to express intense emotions. It helps them to interpret the things they see in the world around them better, picking out details that are important to them and you can really get an insight into their mind.
• Dressing up – fancy dress and pretending to be a character is fabulous, especially if you have a few children who can play together. By pretending to be someone or something else, they can imagine the person or animal’s thoughts, feelings and behaviours and act them out. Popular themes are pirates, cowboys and Indians, doctors and nurses, or even playing schools.
Why not think of some of your own ideas? Crafts, scavenger hunts, role playing with figurines…the possibilities are endless!
Bio
This is a post
from James Mechan who works with Galt Toys
and has a great interest in the methods of aiding a child learning through
play. You can find him on Twitter @Mechan135
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