Why is playing important?

Turns out, kids don’t just want to play, they need to play. In an article exploring the importance of play, Aappublications.com (American Association of Pediatricians) states that play is “essential to the cognitive, physical, social, and emotional well-being of children and youth.”  Further in the article, the AAP explains that play is important to healthy brain development. It allows kids from an early age to interact and engage with the world around them and to use their creativity while building physical, cognitive, and emotional skills as well as developing dexterity and imagination.

How does it work?

The Department of Education and Early Childhood Development of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, lays out a helpful list of examples showing just what skills your child gains through basic play. Here they are:

• Playing with blocks lays the foundation for logical mathematical thinking, scientific reasoning, and cognitive problem solving, and helps children improve their visual memory;
• When children play with blocks, they learn to match, classify, and sort by shape and size, which is an important skill for many types of learning;
• When children draw pictures, they are learning to use symbols to represent their ideas, which is a necessary skill for learning to read and write;
• When children string beads they are improving their eye-hand coordination, which is needed for learning to write;
• When children mix two colors of paint together to make another color, they are developing an understanding of cause and effect;
• When children pretend-play together, they are improving their language skills and social skills, and they are developing an understanding of social expectations, including empathy;
• Active play helps develop gross motor skills, fine motor skills, agility, coordination, and balance;
• Play allows children to use their imaginations to explore and discover their world.

Additionally, play helps children develop good interpersonal skills and helps them learn to problem-solve, negotiate conflicts, and think for themselves, the Department of Education states.

What Eggs Time has to offer

We fully realize how important playtime is for kids’ development. With our toys and games we try to provide as many educational benefits for kids as we can while keeping our products fun, simple, and enjoyable.  For example, our series of puzzle erasers, which come in geometric shapes (in King Eggs) and in animal shapes (in Happy Eggs and Lucky Eggs), works perfectly for strengthening kids’ cognitive skills while they play. Each eraser separates into parts; in order to re-arrange the eraser to its original shape, children must exercise their visual memory and visual analysis, as well as their problem-solving skills.

Another good example is our series of character action figures included in King Eggs, MagiK Eggs, Happy Eggs, and Lucky Eggs. Eggs Time’s action figures are very versatile. They work great for role play (which develops kids’ imagination, speech, and communication skills) and for learning colors and animals. We also create developmental paper and digital games and coloring pages for kids to enjoy and to learn from.

As you can see, kids’ play time needs to be taken seriously. And keeping this in mind, Eggs Time has created many high-quality products to make play time both enjoyable and meaningful for children. If you want to explore more of the benefits Eggs Time has to offer, check out our digital catalogue at eggstime.com.