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Choosing preschool toys for your child can be an overwhelming task. The pressure to choose educational toys for your home preschool child should is your conscience speaking. Even though stores line their aisles with a the latest fads, avoid the latest marketing gimmick that line the pockets of movie producers and stick with basics such as dolls and their accessories, craft supplies, board games, simple puzzles, blocks, cars and trucks, and tractors, play garden and kitchen toys.
And we all have to get over our female resistance to toy guns as our boys will make sticks or slices of bread into guns regardless!
Think active, not passive, play time.
Keep in mind that your child's attention span is short, so invest in toys that have the most long-lasting value. Avoid toys that don't make your child move, such as remote controlled devices or puppies that walk and jump. Your child will lose interest very quickly if he is not able to do something with the toy. They are hard to resist but usually break quickly. Purchase a few toys carefully.
Best choices will be geared to your child's interests at the time you are choosing the toy. Buying a stuffed animal after a visit to the zoo links that toy to a memory so your child's emotional attachment to that stuffed animal will be strong. We still own the beat-up wolf-cub puppet from when we took our now-thireen-year-old to a zoo.
To "beef up" your toy supply check out yard sales. Even consignment stores can be a great way to stock up on small toy cars, trucks, board games, plastic blocks, etc.
To keep clutter down and interest high toys can be stored away in small containers and rotated daily or weekly to make the toy seem fresh and exciting again. This especially works well if you are homeschooling older children.
A few educational toys can be brought out just at "school time". These can be play doh (if you are brave), shoe laces to lace around shapes of cardboard with holes punched, action figures, even a box of rice with measuring cups and spoons to play in. Special pop-up books or felt books with movable pieces or sticker books also work well for this. Felt sets and a felt board can be used to teach Bible stories, shapes, numbers and much more. Don't forget paper dolls. The more traditional blocks, dolls, tops, and other non-electronic toys will usually give the best mileage. A barn with animals that can be rearranged can mezmerize a child for a day. Even when the novelty wears off, though, that child will still return again and again to experience that first moment of fascination. To be a farmer!
How many ways can you use a cardboard box? Make a diorama, make a mailbox for you and your child to send letters to each other, design a robot, decorate it it for a dollhouse, mak a book, cover it with duct tape and make a tote bag, make a firehouse for firetrucks, make a barn, make an ocean scene with sea creatures hanging down with string. And, finally: make a puppet theatre. Then get out some socks and make puppets!Keeping a young child busy without electroncs can be a challenge, but with the right combination of educational toys, it can be a joy.
For more on homeschooling preschoolers see http://fun-home-preschool.com
