School Toys Get The Fun Put Back Into Them

If you’ve been keeping a close enough eye on primary and kindergarten schools over the past 10 years you’ll have noticed that the toys on offer to children have been getting progressively more educational. There is nothing wrong with this in principle as we all want our children to learn to the best of their abilities, but recent reports have shown that the most recent educational toys may not be as beneficial to our kids learning as first thought.

A study by the Federal Education Department has found that children are engaging with toys a lot less in school and are finding other ways to spend their free time, often leading to disruptive behavior. Experts are blaming the formal nature of the toys on offer, most of which have a focus on numbers or letters.The schools board spokesman Tim Penchant stated that in their opinion, “children should be able to relax and enjoy themselves in their break time and it should not be used as a continuation of their learning time”. He went on to say that bath toys and toy diggers should be reintroduced for use in the water pits and sand pits that most schools have available to them. Simple dolls houses have the potential to keep children entertained for hours and because they are social use toys (can be played with by more than one person) they help develop communication and interaction skills.

The goververnment have commented on the study results, saying that they will be looking to bring in more fun toys into school and getting the balance right. Their take on it is that if you have an equal amount then children can choose for themselves what kind of toys they want to play with and everyone will be happy. There has been a mixed bag of reactions from parents, some of whom want their children to learn the most they can at school and others saying that everyone needs a break from learning, even young children