Of Renzo and his playtime toys

Toys are always something special for a child, very much like a new gadget for a guy or a new fashion accessory for a lady. Renzo's playtime toys have changed as he grew and it is interesting to note how each have impacted his mental and/or physical development.

About a year ago, Renzo's favourite toy was simply a wooden puzzle - simple in design... a board with animal cutouts or vehicle cutouts, and each cutout had a pinhead-like protrusion in the middle so that the child can pick up the piece and place it into the respective real estate on the board itself.


This was supposedly part of the Montessori approach to education and did build up Renzo's foundations for recognition of shapes and colours (or maybe it was pure memory power...lol), but in any case, I'm pretty such it helped with his fine motor skills judging from how he'd have to pick up the pieces and dexterously place them into each socket.

Thereafter, the ever popular iPad2 entered Renzo's life and it got him hooked for a very, very long time. Almost to a point where I'd consider it an addiction. He'd want it in the morning when he wakes up, he'd want it before he sleeps at night, and he'd want it anytime in between those times.. -___-'
But all the wonders of technology helped Renzo's learning capabilities tremendously. He learned about letters, phonics, numbers, colours, shapes and just about everything from the gazillion Apple apps available.


This, of course, had its drawbacks and as colourful and appealing as these apps are, they just don't allow for creativity and confined Renzo to how the application was programmed to work.

Somehow Renzo seemed to realize that too and his interest in the iPad2 gradually declined and it was only until recently that he picked up a strong interest in the TV series "Thomas and Friends". The TV shows themselves weren't of any particular impact on Renzo's development but we did get some toys for him... (okay okay... "some" is an understatement here) and as this toys are physical, he could grab them and explore his environment with that one toy. Like when there was this time we brought him to a Japanese Restaurant, Mummy Chan and I loved it when he took few a pair of wooden chopsticks and lined them up like railway tracks for his train to run on. After which he took a few little dishes and filled them with food and/or wasabi and arranged them into a long trail behind the train like cargo that the train was pulling. Pure creativity and imagination at work. And it was evident when you see that little sparkle in Renzo's eyes as he focused on perfecting the look of the 'cargo' and 'railway lines'.

This brought me to read up an article about findings by a developmental psychologist, Kathy Hirsh-Pasek. It was mentioned that "Old-fashioned toys, such as red rubber balls, simple building blocks, clay and crayons, that don't cost so much and are usually hidden in the back shelves are usually much healthier for children than the electronic educational toys that have fancier boxes and cost $89.99".

It is primarily because simpler toys will encourage more creativity from the child. The child would command the toy and not have the toy commanding the child. So when purchasing a toy for a child, we should keep in mind that toys are meant to be props for your child to play with, not directors telling your child how he should be playing.