Why Are Wooden Toys The Best Toys
Is there a perfect toy? If so, wooden toys may be the closest. Maria Montessori prefers “real” toys made of natural materials because they are healthy, safe, and enlightening to children. They are beautiful and durable; some of the first toys found were made of wood.
A simple, beautifully made wooden toy can attract children’s interest without overwhelming them, and stimulate their imagination without guidance.
Here are six reasons to choose wooden toys:
They help children focus
Studies have shown that games and learning environments with natural elements are more conducive. Benefits to children’s concentration, concentration, and even self-control than other types of spaces. More specifically, touching wood actually calms children down.
A study conducted by the National Institutes of health in 2017 found that “contact with wood causes physiological relaxation.” In an era of overstimulation and constant investment, toys that advocate a quieter and more lasting play environment can greatly benefit children and their cognitive development.
More uses = fewer toys
For infant toys, less money is usually more, they may feel overwhelmed by too many choices. The minimalist space of Montessori’s and Waldorf’s houses and classrooms embodies this idea in practice. They tend to choose a variety of functional, open-ended wooden toys.
A 2018 study provided a group of young children with two different play environments, one with 16 toys and the other with only 4 toys. It was found that “children’s play quality in the” four toys “was higher than that in the” 16 toys “by measuring the continuous play and multiple play modes.”
Children naturally form closer to bonds, toys, and their own play when entering deeper with fewer options. The openness of wooden toys allows children to create their own way of playing and spend more time on a single toy.
They promote creativity and teach causality
The toy market is full of flashing lights, bright colors, screens, and loud sounds. Functions like these can immediately meet the needs of young children, but they also tend to turn off opportunities for problem-solving and imaginative play.
Because wooden toys tend to be simpler, they also support cognitive milestones in ways that flashy toys can’t. At about nine months, for example, infants begin to understand causality more clearly. knocking on a piece of wood on the ground makes a sound while dropping it makes it invisible. Wooden toys, such as building blocks or simple jigsaw puzzles, refine the concept to its essence: “When I do something, it makes other things happen.”
Wooden toys also provide a beautiful, tactile, and open “blank canvas” for children to explore according to their own pace and conditions. Additional bells that make other toys more attractive often limit and guide children how to play with them.
They are a quiet introduction to the real world
Toys introduce the working principle of the physical world in many ways: they are the first objects for children to touch, talk and play with. Simple wooden toys teach quiet, calm lessons in physics, causality, object persistence, creativity, problem-solving, and many other basic topics.
Yes, a determined baby or toddler can make a sound from any object. But wooden toys are usually quieter, providing noise for a quieter game environment, without the noise of many plastic toys.
They inspire
Wooden toys are perfect for creating a new world from scratch.
Montessori practitioners believe that simple, natural materials often lead to more meaningful and sustained engagement.
Whether children are building a city, magnifying the wooden car, or on a train track stretching from one room to another, they can use their budding imagination to build, invent, repair, makeup, and create.
They introduce math and physics to their children
Original stem toys, wooden building blocks need dexterity, hand-eye coordination, and a lot of fine motion accuracy to stack and balance.
They also support learning important skills in mathematics, such as pattern matching and recognition.
Since there are no magnets or attachment systems to lock the building blocks together.
Children must focus on coordinating their hands and eyes to build and balance the different elements.
When the sixth square is placed on the top of the tower and overturned, or when the ball rolls down the slope, the children learn early physics lessons.
