Top Ten Toys to Encourage Creativity
I go this idea from an article in the October 2013 Parents magazine. They listed the top ten toys to encourage creativity and as I flipped through the list I found that our family had 7 of 10 in our home already and the only reason the other three aren’t here, YET, is because my little man isn’t ready for those three developmentally.
I literally leaned over, showed my husband, and gave him a high five. Oh the small validations we I need. Makes me laugh now, but I sure felt proud.
It lead me to ask on my private Facebook profile to see what others thought might make the list. I got a great list and in the end what it lead me to was that our instincts as parents and people who love kids are RIGHT. We need to go with our gut. Yes it’s nice validation to have “Parents” magazine put out a list like this or maybe these things don’t come as naturally to you and you found yourself on the hunt for some new additions to the toys in your home. But, honestly going with our gut is one of the best gifts we can give ourselves and our children.
My friends said:
legos
play kitchen
crayons
puppets/dolls
books
etch-a-sketch
cardboard box
cardboard tube
cape
sidewalk chalk
building blocks
play dough
toy automobiles
dress up clothes
playhouse
dollhouse
Many of these had several “votes.” I got 16 different responses and 6 of the 10 listed in Parents were there!
Parents magazine listed puzzles, pretend food, a ball, instruments, artist’s tools, mini figurines, molding clay and dough, dress-up materials, gears, and toys for building.
So… the four we missed in my very small survey were – puzzles, ball, instruments, and gears. I believe if I had left if a bit longer we might have gotten all ten. Although I thought several of our ideas were better then “gears.” 🙂
Interesting isn’t it? Our guts were right. Does it make you breath a sigh of relief or did it give you a few ideas for things you could introduce, or reintroduce to your kids?
I think more then anything it reminded me that kids don’t need a lot of “toys” and that things that encourage imagination are the types of things we should have in our homes.
I’ll leave you with two quotes from the article in Parents by Pamela Brill titled “TOP 10 Toys for Creativity.”
“Divergent thinking uses facts and experience to generate new ideas.”
“Flexible thinkers find new uses for familiar things.”
This made me think. To become a flexible or divergent thinker a child needs facts, experiences, familiar things, and maybe a few of these top 10 toys to help create those creative thought opportunities. It also gave me a few more thoughts to add to my “birthday present struggle” and how to handle presents each year. To read more about my thoughts on that check out the final paragraph on Cashel’s first birthday post. So far I’ve come to the conclusion that asking for “re-gifts” or doing “buy nothing” birthdays might be in our future. Unless it is an ‘experience’ gift like a pass to the zoo or science center. Anyway, I found this article as fuel for those thoughts. 🙂
Do you have a fun story about how your child was a divergent or flexible thinker? My Cashel man used a cardboard tube as a trumpet just last week and I thought that was pretty creative. 😉
