Educational toys for toddlers at SN's nursery

A Greek philosopher named Plato used to say that “The most important part of education is proper training in the nursery.” Plato (Ancient Greek Philosopher)


I couldn't agree more with his opinion. I believe that proper early childhood education is important in my child's development; be in it the motor section or the brain section. Therefore, I am blessed that SN's nursery known as Kinomi Hoikuen provided lots of educational tools for learning rather than providing the kids with unnecessary toys.


Based on my observation, the nursery made a careful selection on types of learning tools used in the classroom during the 'しごと shigoto' (work) session. During the しごと shigoto' (work) session, the kids will be seated on the small chair and table; and get to choose variety of educational tools according to their preference. *Setiap learning tools tu di letak kat dalam tray kecik supaya alat tu tak bersepah dan hilang; kalau jatuh pun senang nak kutip sebab dalam tray je*.

+- ambil dan simpan semula toys kat rak. setiap toys di letak dalam tray -+

Almost all the educational toys is wooden toys with selection of couples of top-quality educational and developmental wooden toys, blocks and puzzles for toddlers, preschool and kindergarten-aged children. Wooden toys is a good selection for toys as it is natural and durable at the same time.

The educational toys used in SN's nursery are very helpful in his fine motor skills development. It is important as the basis for the preparation of the hand. Fine motor skill development is not only essential for handwriting; it is a necessity for daily living: dressing, eating and computer use.

Here are some of the educational toys used in SN's nursery that I believe had helped him a lot in his fine motor skills development :-

(1) Stick and Spoons

• Use chopstick or spoon as a great device to strengthen the skill side of the hand.

• Moving the item from one container to the next container requires him to coordinate his small muscle movements especially the coordination of finger movement with vision

+- pindah kan guli guna sudu *penghayatan 100% sampai pejam2 mata sebab fokus* -+

+- pindahkan macaroni dari satu bowl ke bowl yang lain guna sudu kecil -+

+- pindahkan rubber-square ball using chopstick -+

+- (video): SN dalam kelas during 'shigoto'(work) session -+

(2) Lacing Beads

• Lacing activities call for children to not only use their fingers and wrists, but help promote visual coordination as well.

• These activities help develop fine motor skills needed to perform future functional tasks.

• Quality designed stringing pegs are engineered for easy grasping as children improve fine motor skills and are introduced to geometric thinking and patterning. Children can also learn about color recognition.

+- masukkan chunky wooden beads with oversize holes into the extra long laces -+

(3) Stacking• stacking activity stimulates eye-hand coordination while teaching numbers, counting, and color and shape recognition.

+- sambil stacking, sambil belajar pasal warna dan bentuk -+

(4) Peg & Pegboard Activities

• A versatile learning aids that are designed to develop and strengthen visual perception skills, visual motor coordination and fine motor skills, including the pincer grasp (thumb and index finger) so crucial to fine motor development and control.

• Develop grasp and release, refined pinches, eye-hand coordination, and in-hand manipulation (translation and translation with stabilization) by picking up, placing, and removing the pegs.

+- sempat lagi jeling kat kamera sebelum start 'kerja' eheh -+

(5) Puzzles

• puzzles are a great approach of early introduction to problem solving and critical thinking.

• Solving jigsaw puzzles is a great way for children to develop hand-eye coordination and problem solving skills while having fun.

• Most of the puzzles are colorfully illustrated which have very large pieces, making it easy for young puzzlers to manipulate them.

+- This self-correcting puzzle challenges children to recognize and classify basic shapes as well as identify primary colors with easy-grasp wooden knobs -+

+- identify the similar picture as well as learn about animals and car -+

(6) Drawing

• Children develop crayon/brush grasp, bilateral coordination, and many other skills while having a great time.

+- SN working on his artwork using crayon -+

+- SN working on his artwork using brush and water color -+

+- using brush and water color to draw -+

(7) Plastic Vegetable Fruit Toy Set

• Fun and imaginative toys are ideal for teaching proper nutrition, developing shopping and meal preparation skills, and serving as props for the teaching.

+- ada timun, carrot, potato -+

(8) Colour recognition sets

• A set of colorful board to be used optimally for color recognition activities, as well as it can be used for enhancing hand-eye coordination.
• Thus, using this toy, baby can improve the hand-eye coordination by either rearranging the board and lay it side by side or doing stacking activities of the board based on its color.

+- colourful string boards -+

(9) Coins and jar

• Offers hand-eye coordination to sort the coins inside the small holes on top of the jar. An excellent developer of fine motor skills.

+- menabung amalan mulia -+

Basically, those are some of the educational toys provided at SN's nursery. By looking at the toys, I get some rough ideas on what type of toys that I should buy for SN to help in his fine motor skills activity at home.

So I come up with my own version of toys to used at home to help in SN's fine motor skills section. Kalau ada yang nak tahu, nanti I boleh share toys yang I sediakan kat rumah untuk SN. Just in case, if you think it would be helpful for you..I'll be more than happy to share it with you guys.

How about other parent out there?. Do you believe in these so-called educational toys or do you think that it is just some sort of marketing tricks from the toys company to gain the parent's interest to buy their toys?.

As for my personal opinion sebab I tengok nursery SN guna toys macam ini, so I try to provide few educational toys jugak kat rumah untuk SN.


Pssssttt: I tak pasti pulak masa kecil-kecil dulu I ada educational toys macam ini ke tak. Nanti I nak tanya dengan my sister lah.

~ Thanks for reading this (^-*) ~