Looking back at the time when we started learning about magnetic tiles, we had very little knowledge and understanding about the importance of educational toys and the impact it had on children's early development. I said it before that at a simple perspective, looking at toys can be something that we see strictly as entertainment and not a cognitive tool.
When we started traveling across Sydney suburbs knocking on doors of childcare centers promoting the magnetic tiles, we discovered something that too many of us can sometimes take for granted, the importance of the educators and how they can stimulate children's minds.
During our workshops and visits (learn more about this in our next blog), we found a significant difference on the level of knowledge. In 6 out of 10 centers, where we presented the basic geometrical shapes to their 4-5 year old children, from a group of 20, only 3 or 4 children knew the names of the shapes and possibly 1 or 2 knew what a cube was.
At first we simply took this as an age variance thinking that it was normal to see children not being able to recognize or name the shapes that were displayed to them. This however was completely the opposite as we visited other centers, we discovered that children in childcare that used similar stem toys were able to recognize and name the geometrical shapes. They easily interacted with the magnetic tiles as we provided them with ideas and challenges.
Fine motor skills as well as creative skills of the children who had used this tool before were quite distinctive from those we encountered in previous childcare who had not been exposed to familiar stem toys. This was clear evidence to us that educational toys exposure from an early age can greatly contribute towards their brain development and stimulation.
Next week we'll share a quick view of our workshops and how you can use them to help your children understand mathematical concepts and geometric shapes with magnetic tiles.
Any comments or questions? send us a message or share your thoughts!
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