Toys that encourage creativity and problem solving prepare and improve your child’s understanding skills and brain functions, as they interact with it, figure out how it works, and use their senses. These toys let your kids explore their surroundings and be familiar with them. It also teaches them how to make conversation. With these, your child will blossom into a more curious, confident, and creative individual.
There’s plenty of educational toys in the market that offer kids opportunities to explore their imagination, come up with amazing ideas, and discover their abilities.
Multi-use, open ended toys are great options, like building toys, playmats, and bricks. You can incorporate these toys into fun games and activities such as interactive play, messy play, collaborative play, and more.
Help your child jumpstart his or her brain development, creativity, and problem solving skills by engaging him or her in fun activities using developmental toys.
Here are some brain-boosting clever toys best for your child:
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Puzzles
Puzzles challenge your child to think and develop strategies to achieve a goal- to complete the puzzle. This educational toy keeps your child entertained while exercising their minds because it has different themes such as animals, cars or trucks, flowers and more.
Five Shape Puzzle is a colored puzzle with 5 different colored-shapes. These vibrant colours can stimulate your child’s senses. While your child plays, you can tell him or her about the different shapes and colours, name them, or give a brief description about their toy. It will make your child be more curious about it so he or she might ask more questions.
Or tell a story, have the pieces as your props. It would spark their imagination that they can create their own stories too. Through this, your child will not just learn about shapes and colours, it would enhance their creative minds as well.
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Stacking Toys
Playing with stacking toys improves your child’s problem-solving skills. Making a tower is a challenging task for a kid. Sometimes the block or cups won’t fit, and it topples to the ground. That makes them feel frustrated!
So as they build, they learn to do trial and error strategy-- look for the block or rings that will fit, then balance them. If it still doesn't work, they can try and try again.
Stacking toys come in different shapes, colours and sizes, that your child can use to construct or build towers, buildings, or any structures they like. It’s also a great symbolic play prop, where your child can stack and create stories, and play with it in different ways, where you can be involved too! It fosters creativity and makes them think outside the box.
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Modelling Clay
Modelling clay helps unleash your child’s creativity. There’s no limit to what your child can create with clay: common shapes, animal faces, flowers and leaves, numbers, and even everyday things they see you and the family use at home.
They can squish it, mould it, poke it, and shape it. Playing with clay is fun, and therapeutic. And the best part is they can make something out of nothing! That’s pretty cool!
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Balancing Blocks
There’s a reason why every nursery and every baby in the world has blocks. Balancing blocks' vibrant colours can easily attract your child’s attention. And it introduces your child to the early stage of problem-solving because they need to find ways on how they can stack all of the blocks and make sure it won’t tumble and fall.
Unlike the regular building blocks, these blocks have many flat cut surfaces that can be stacked. This toy also challenges their logical thinking skills to think of different positions, or strategy. You can be in it for fun too. Show your child what to do first, or you can both think of creative ways to build it.
You can display it at home on a shelf when not in use.
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Straw Construction Toys
Straw construction toys are a brilliant toy your child can play with while learning valuable experiences. Kids can create simple shapes, and designs by connecting the straws. There are plenty of structures, castles, houses, towers, or any other buildings your tot can make out of these straws.
It supports your child’s problem solving skills, critical thinking, mathematics, and simple mechanics. This provides endless building possibilities for your little engineers for their pretend play. The straws have vibrant colours that also help them learn primary colour recognition.
Straw construction toys are so versatile, creative, and multi-dimensional, inspiring your kids to build extraordinary things, ask questions, and experience adventure. You’ll be surprised at what things and structures they can build! Ask them to explain or describe what they built or created. Let your kids tell stories about their little creations.
These toys provide opportunities for your child to try out new ideas, look at things in a fresh perspective, express themselves creatively, and take on challenges positively.
When your kids can handle or solve problems on their own, they become confident, resilient, and more independent. Games and toys can make them practice and enhance their problem-solving skills, so give your child the right activities and toys to play with consistently. Because they won’t master these skills overnight.