TOYS THAT INSPIRE OPEN PLAY

With the season of giving coming up, lots of children will be gifted lots of toys - but do some provide better educational benefits than others?

It’s been firmly proven that children learn through play, yet every year, toy makers release the latest ‘must-haves’ for kids, including toys based on favourite movie characters and plenty of button-pressing light-up features, including noise! As fun as these things might be, it’s worth asking whether the latest fad toys actually inspire creativity in children, or whether they have limited functional value. Child development experts generally agree that toys designed for ‘open play’ - ones that require children to use their imagination - are the ones that provide the best educational and developmental benefits.

WHAT IS OPEN PLAY?

Open play usually involves toys that don’t have set rules of play or a specific outcome to playing with them, meaning that a child can get creative and make up their own way of playing with them. One example could be a set of dinosaur figurines. My nephew loved playing with them by putting them into toy trucks and whizzing them around; repeatedly building a ‘dinosaur farm,’ with fences made from crayons, or bits of card and paper. He’d use other toys, like farm animals and teddy bears to be the dinosaur farmer, or zookeeper. He’d get the tyrannosaurus to chase the other dinosaurs, only to be ‘told off’ by the teddy bear. The set up was always different and he provided the scenarios and dialogue with great enthusiasm.

Toys designed for open-ended play allow kids’ imaginations to run wild and free without fear of failing or making a wrong move. They enable children to safely explore their own creativity without expectations, and in doing so, become more familiar and comfortable with the world around them.