Wooden toys for home education and schooling: 15 advantages

Every year toy companies design new toys and games. Most of them contain intricate plastic parts. Some of them are even equipped with bells and whistles. Some are created with a specific goal in mind.

Even though these toys can have developmental value for your child, you can spend lots of money without achieving a desired goal. Wooden toys can offer much more, than their fashionable counterparts. Here are 15 advantages of using wooden toys for home schooling.

1. Wooden toys don't get outdated

No doubt, wooden toys are considered to be fashionable at all times. Strictly speaking, they remained in fashion for decades if not centuries. Your grandparents and great grandparents played and learned with wooden toys as your grandchildren and great grandchildren will also be doing. With all the variety of new and often amazing items, it is better at times to turn to a trusted product which has been around for a while. Manufacturers are constantly working on improving and varying the look and construction of wooden toys, but one can rest assured: those toys will posses all the qualities and advantages that had been already serving the generations of children

2. Wooden toys are long-lasting

Let’s take an honest look — children don't spare their toys and other materials they get their hands onto. Chances are your games and sets are missing one or two pieces, and at least one toy is broken. Wooden toys, however, not only keep serving their purpose, but oftentimes get passed along from generation to generation.They are usually made from solid high-quality wood and they retain their wholeness. Except for a few scratches or dents these toys are practically unbreakable, as they are made from high quality wood. If soiled, they can be easily cleaned and be back into a battle. If you would like to invest into good toys, why not to choose something that will last longer and serve a few generations of kids?

3. Wooden toys “grow” along with your children

When acquiring a wooden toy for your child, you are buying a long lasting thing of universal quality: a toy will “grow" with your child. Babies and preschoolers can use wooden toys in their simple games and manipulations, while older kids can incorporate them into more complex playing scenarios, or even use in their school projects on geometry or physics, problem solving and research. The growth of your child's skills and intelligence will increase the range of applications for the wooden toys. Many existing products come with certain age recommendations, while the application for wooden toy is so diverse, that it works with many age groups and skill levels.

4. Wooden toys contribute to the development of imagination

Wooden toys give an opportunity for the kids to manage their playing. Be it vehicles, or household or food items, the toys will stimulate imagination for playing and learning. Other category of wooden toys is represented by basic shapes: sticks, cubes, arches, triangles and circles. These shapes make children find the way to use them, provide ideas for further creative applications. They can be used in experiments on physics or, for example, aid learning geometry. Any recommendations on such toys will act as points of departure, they will boost initial interest and set a child onto creative path to finding more ways to play. For example younger children can use practically any object for playing purposes. The majority of wooden toys don't have particular purpose, so they allow playing where the imagination is truly limitless.

5. Wooden toys combine practical skills

In their imaginary games children often tend to imitate real life scenarios.

For example, kids can have wooden toys in the form of grocery items or household items to play “House” or “Grocery shopping”. Basic figures along with the imagination can be sufficient to develop practical skills. For example, wooden sticks can represent money while shopping for wooden fruits or veggies. Red circles can become strawberries, and blue ones — blueberries when making “fruit salad”.

6. Wooden toys are less distractive

While playing with wooden toys, kids are encouraged to produce voices, signals and other sound effects instead of listening to the sounds that toy makes. This allows an independent control over any playing actions; as a result there is less distraction and more imagination at work. Despite the fact that many whistling, talking and ringing toys seems to be appealing to children, sounds and noises can impede his or her imagination and thinking processes, as if pre-setting a framework for playing.

7. Wooden toys encourage co-playing

While using their imagination for real life play, children often like to invite others to join. The toys that can “talk” or make other noises are more likely to promote solo play, because they provide a “reaction” and “socialize” with a child. Wooden toys don't have any light or sound effects or other interactive features, which makes children tend to invite other kids to play along. If you have several kids in your family, chance are wooden toys will never be played by one child only. Otherwise, you as a parent can always become a playing companion to your kid. Playing with your kids can help them expand their comprehension and reinforce their decisions.

8. Wooden toys help develop logical thinking

Wooden toys are lacking electronic components, therefore they don't instruct a child what to do next. They aren't created with a certain purpose in mind, they leave room for imagination and help develop logical thinking. Using wooden blocks one can built a mini model in order to solve scientific problem or create an image using Tangram pieces. Various manipulations with wooden toys, such as sorting by shape, colour or size will promote logical thinking as well.

9. Wooden toys help develop problem solving skills

Wooden toys can be used for solving problems. Preschoolers or kindergarteners can use wooden toys as visual aid when learning to add and subtract. Older kids can use them, let's say, for building fortresses to test either stability or the action of destructive forces, or create more complex visual solutions for math or science problems. Unlike other developmental toy sets, which often contain pre-constructed pieces, wooden toys have non-specific shapes and using them will require a lot more imagination.

10. Wooden toys improve the hand-eye coordination

Thanks to their basic shapes, wooden blocks help develop the hand-eye coordination. Such activities as building a fortress without having it fall down or stringing wooden marbles together, require attention to measurement of distances as well as careful placement. Also wooden toys can be used for learning about spatial concepts, such as “above”, “under”, “beside”, “on top”, “below”. By solving problems or creating scale models children begin to see and asses the juxtaposition of pieces in space, and this also contributes to development of above mentioned skills.

11. Wooden toys help develop fine motor skills

During playing with wooden toys children develop their fine motor skills. Wooden toys come in many different shapes and sizes. Occasionally they can be cumbersome and awkward for little hands. Through this experience the child learns how to handle the toy the best way possible and manipulate it successfully to make it work in a certain playing situation. Babies and toddlers can practice their basic grasping skills on larger blocks while preschoolers and older kids can use wooden figures, balls and sticks to a more precise handing, wrist rotation and other motor skills.

12. Wooden toys are tactile

Unlike toys made of plastic, many wooden toys are quite heavy and handling them can be more of a comprehensive experience. Weighted toys are better for kids with delayed development of fine motor skills or sensorial problems, as they help kids with feeling and registering their own movements. Tactile qualities of wooden toys also make a child think more and use more energy in the process of playing and learning. For example, the wheels on a wooden toy truck move with less ease than on plastic or metal one, therefore a child will spend more effort to make it move.

13. Wooden toys are safe

When your child is playing with wooden toys you can assured that he or she is safe. Most of the wooden toys aren’t easily breakable, which means you wont be dealing with sharp edges or small parts that broke off a toy. Besides, these toys are non-toxic and made from natural materials, so you don't have to worry about contaminating your home with chemicals; also you can safely let your kid have a wooden block in their mouth for tasting without worrying about his or her health.

14. Wooden toys don't make noise

Wooden toys not only keep your home chemicals-free, they also make it noise-free. Quiet environment will help your child to stay more focused on playing, and we all know: a busy mom can always use a moment of peace and quiet! This kind of toy will not be left working unattended, and the kid’s play will not be accompanied by constant beeps and pops. Wouldn't you rather hear your child's voice and laughter while he or she is playing and interacting with the wooden toys? And when your child goes to bed, all the toys quiet down and go to sleep too.

15. Wooden toys have aesthetically pleasant look

Whether you have a special place at home where all educational materials and toys are kept or whether you have no such specific corner, chances are you would want to see your home pleasantly and neatly looking. Wooden toys have aesthetically pleasing look. Brightly painted wooden toys are sure to add quite a bit of positivity to learning process. Those that retain their natural wooden look will always be stylish on display. Wooden toys that are showcased in a living room will organically blend with your interior. These toys can always be accessible for a kid and you wouldn’t need to put them away when you have visitors. Wooden toys are, perhaps, more expensive than many trendy toys, but they have significant value. Because their application is not narrowly specific but rather universal, they will serve your family for quite a few years. As they grow, kids find new ways to use their toys, continually enhancing their imagination and fine motor skills, logical thinking and problem solving skills. These toys are maybe not highly advertised ones you can see on tv or when visiting somebody's place, but they are everlasting ones and they give your child an endless opportunity to learn while giving you a chance to proudly display beautiful wooden objects.