Toys That Teach

This holiday season, why not consider toys that do more than clutter your house, are played with briefly and quickly forgotten. There are a host of toy companies that specialize in "developmental" toys -- playthings that experts say can give your child a running start on reading, math, social skills and even sports.

"The ability for toddlers to recite the alphabet and count to ten isn't necessarily a good indicator of how they'll perform in elementary school," says Renatta Cooper, a child development expert at Pacific Oaks College and Playing for Keeps board member. "Rote memorization is becoming less important than developing your child's other mental abilities -- and toys are an effective way to engage and enrich young minds and bodies."

* Toys that Carry a Tune

Musical toys are particularly effective in developing language and math skills because they stimulate a particular area of your child’s brain. Look for toys that are open-ended, self-directed and inspire creativity. Toy brand Neurosmith has an infant product called Sunshine Symphony, a plush toy with four soothing classical compositions activated with a simple touch. With excellent sound quality and a sparkling light show, Sunshine Symphony introduces your child to the world of music.

Other musical toys, like Neurosmith’s Music Blocks Composer, encourage creativity and personal expression as children explore various musical styles, instruments, tempos and structures. Each shape in the Music Block Composer toy represents a different instrument, so your child makes music simply by playing with blocks -- with a possibility of over one million unique musical compositions.

These kinds of mental "decoding" connections come in handy when it comes to learning how to read. While Music Blocks Composer helps kids cultivate a deeper understanding and appreciation for music, it also promotes numerous other developmental benefits: hand-eye coordination, color and shape recognition, sequencing and classification skills, understanding cause and effect and auditory discrimination.

Recent tests show that practicing music actually boosts intelligence. In fact, young children who took piano lessons for a year scored 80 percent higher on spatial tests than children who didn’t. Music training has been shown to be far superior to computer lessons in enhancing abstract reasoning skills. And regular music stimulation in newborns has been shown to increase IQ scores by up to 30 points. It is for these compelling reasons that brands like Neurosmith have spent years developing musical toys that stimulate and engage young brains, and actually expand the ability of infants and toddlers to learn essential non-musical tasks.

* Imagination and Coordination

Toys can also be used to hone such crucial skills as imagination, motor skills, strength and agility, social interaction/sharing, and problem-solving. Small World Toys offers several developmental toys including “the world’s most catchable ball,” the Gertie Ball. This tacky-to-the-touch ball is easy to catch and does more than you think -- it inspires early social skills while developing hand-eye coordination. And with special features like sound and color change, Gertie Balls allow a child to explore cause and effect relationships as well.

Sometimes the more simple and classic the toy, the better, when it comes to developing the imagination. Cooper explains, “Dramatic play teaches social skills more effectively than any instruction.” One of the best-selling Small World Toys brands last season was "Ryan's Room," a line of oversized wooden play sets and accessories available in a variety of themes, including dollhouses, castles, pirate ships and fire stations. Good for countless hours of play acting and pretending, “Ryan’s Room” has been embraced by parents and educators for inspiring imaginative and cooperative play, promoting problem-solving through role play and fostering many other development skills that kids will use over the course of a lifetime.

So this holiday season, consider giving your children a gift that will actually give them an intellectual lift. Years from now when they bring home their first straight "A" report card, you will be glad that you did your homework!