The Top Toys That Develop Imagination
Helping Children Express Creativity With Just A Few Playthings
Allowing children to play is not a frivolous waste of time. Children need the freedom to understand their environment, their family, their friends and themselves. Simple play encourages creative thinking and intellectual, emotional, and social evolvement.
Benefits For Developing Imagination
- Imagination encourages children to practice real-life skills without the responsibility and insecurity that comes along with being an adult.
- Imagination lets children role play various circumstances and practice their outcome.
- Imagination allows children to safely express both negative and positive emotions.
- Imagination lets children actively help and mimic their parent’s roles, allowing them to feel useful.
- Imagination allows children to maintain a sense of control over their own lives.
- Imagination allows children to manifest their memory capabilities and their true creative selves.
Top Toys and Activities That Develop Imagination
Children love play kitchens where they can endlessly bake, refrigerate, microwave, and wash dishes just like mommy and daddy. Pots and pans and pretend food add to the fun.
Children like to mimic mom or dad when they are driving. A hand held driver’s wheel that makes all of the same exciting noises as the real car delight children (and keep them busy!) on long car drives.
Hand puppets and a pretend screen (i.e., a sheet) let children tell stories and role-play.
Books, books, books! Reading aloud to children every day, and allowing them to actively participate in the books, is a vital way to expand imagination and allow children to develop a rich vocabulary.
Dollhouses aren’t just for girls anymore! Real-life looking houses allow children to mimic what goes on in their real lives – and allows them to develop story lines regarding different members of their pretend family. Dolls aren’t just for girls either – they can teach children how to care for and love another human being.
Children can learn a lot from making music. Child-sized drums, guitars, maracas, or a piano are great fun – or if parents have the real thing and don’t mind sharing, that’s fine, too.
Children also love age-appropriate music (recommended children’s CDs abound in music stores) and love to bop and bounce their way through the lyrics. Dancing is a wonderful way to express emotions.
From an early age kids are entranced by colors, and how they can be expressed on paper. Colored pencils or crayons are a wonderful outlet and window to their creative mind. If parents don’t mind the mess, finger paints are a wonderful, sloppy way to get creative.
Cars, trucks, trains, and planes – these vehicles make it possible for children to mentally roam the world, making stops in new cities and countries all in one afternoon.
Blocks of any size or type teach children the fundamentals of stacking (and perhaps more fun, the knocking down). Blocks challenge children to create new houses, structures, animals, robots, people, or the biggest tower they can.
Pretend vacuums or brooms – it’s never too early to start! Children love helping their mom or dad when cleaning the house.
Some children are more comfortable with animals than with people. Stuffed animals, plastic animals, or real-life illustrations with animals are all good ways to let kids practice making animal sounds and understanding the different properties of each animal.
Overview
Children can be entertained and allowed to creatively express themselves with minimal expense. A few pieces of paper and crayons, a hand-made puppet, books (which can be purchased at yard sales or thrift shops), and a few animals can be enough for an entire afternoon of exploration. The benefits of imagination last long into adulthood, helping to develop creative and emotionally expressive individuals. Taking time to play is always an enriching experience.
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