Choosing Educational Toys

How do you ensure that the educational toy you buy will be right for your child? As with everything there are no guarantees with children. There are a couple of things to consider when selecting children's educational toys that can improve the chances that your choice will be well received. First, evaluate the developmental stage that your child is at. Select educational toys that target skills and abilities for that stage. An educational toy that is too advanced may cause frustration, and one that is too simple will not be challenging enough to warrant attention. Below is a general guideline for what types of children's educational toys are better suited for developmental stages from newborn through 3 years old. This is only meant to be a guide to start you thinking in the right direction. Use these guidelines and your knowledge of your child's interests to you help make your educational toy purchases.

Newborn to 3 Months: Babies cannot do much at this stage but their senses are eager for stimulation. Children's educational toys with high-contrast patterns and bright colors will capture little ones' attention. Babies can see color from birth but have difficulty distinguishing between similar tones. Educational toys designed with bright and distinctly different colors like red, green, black and white help babies differentiate shapes and patterns. Babies spend a good deal of time on their backs and sides at this age making colorful mobiles that play music a great educational toy choice. Babies are fascinated by their reflection in safety mirrors. They are not able to recognize themselves but the activity is great visual stimulation. Baby gyms are excellent educational toys because of the variety of stimulation they offer. Baby gyms have bright colors, a variety of attachments with different shapes, textures, and sounds. Most gyms now play music and have lights as well. These educational toy gyms require baby to pull, kick, or bat something to set off the stimulus helping to develop motor skills.

Suggested toys for this age: Galt Paynest and Gym, Busy Bear Mirror, 2 in 1 Smart Gym, Farm Friends Mobile, Jumbo Gym, and Farm Linkies.

3 to 6 Months: During this stage your baby will gain better head control and have better movement of arms and legs. They generally grip onto anything they can get their hands on and put it directly into their mouth. Educational toys like rattles promote motor development and provide sensory stimulation. Since everything ends up in the mouth, educational toys that are chewable or soft plush are favorites. Babies need to experience different textures so vary the materials educational toys are made of. Activity centers provide lots of stimulation at this age. These educational toys normally have lots of buttons that produce sounds, lights, and give a variety of textures to explore. Hand-eye coordination will improve as babies explore the activity center. Parents are often on the move more with babies at this age. Activity bars that fit across a stroller, car seat, or bouncy chair that have dangling, squeaky toys and mirrors keep baby stimulated while on the move. Motor skills develop as baby reaches, hits, pulls, and kicks at the accessories on these educational toys.

Suggested toys for this age: Tummy Play Trainer, Curiosity Cube, Toe Time Infant Car Toy, Musical Arch 'N Play, Jungle Pals Pushchair Arch.

6 to 12 Months: Your baby has much better control over arm and leg movement. By 9 to 10 months, your baby should be able to move around by some means- either pulling, crawling, or scooting. By 12 months they should be able to stand by themselves and many will even start walking. Educational toys including wooden blocks that baby can stack and knock down, throw, or bang together to make noise are good choices. By 12 months, educational wooden blocks can be used for early construction play to promote development of motor skills, cause and effect, sensory and visual stimulation. Educational toys like the Sensory Ball from Edushape, provides great stimulation with different textures. Once babies learn to sit up, they will enjoy rolling a ball and trying to catch it as you roll it back. Letting your baby chase the ball will encourage movement. Trying to figure out why a square block won't go through a round opening will help develop problem solving skills- though it may cause some frustration in the beginning. By the time your baby is 12 months, they will start to enjoy stacking activities, though they will need help in trying to get the right order. More interest in books will be noticeable now. Try to buy books that have pages with different textures and simple flaps. This will help to develop their sense of touch.

Suggested toys for this age: Frog in the Box, Activity Cube, Farm Friends Stacker, Soft Books, Hug a Bug, Textured Blocks.

1 to 2 years: With each step your baby becomes more independent and confident. Little ones at this age spend every waking hour exploring and experimenting. For those still a bit unsteady walking, educational toys that promote mobility such as a walker or push car are great choices. Pushcarts and wagons are a great way for children to tote things around- another favorite activity at this age. Educational toys including soft plush toys and dolls remain favorites at this age. Children often become very attached to one or two and use them in creative play. Toddlers can find many ways to make loud sounds. Musical instruments like drums, maracas, and tambourines are educational toys that will help them learn to appreciate music while they make noise. Inset puzzles require toddlers to lift out pieces and find the right places to put them back. These first puzzles improve problem skills and fine tune motor skills. Puzzles are educational toys that your children will play with over and over again.

Suggested toys for this age: 4 in 1 Walker, Galt Wooden Baby Walker, Little Hands Music Band, Mini Edublocks, First Blocks, Baby Puzzles, Wooden Shaped Puzzles, First Puzzles.

2 to 3 Years: Your toddler's motor skills are now well developed. They can run, jump, and climb. The area of explosive development in this stage is speech and language. Imaginative play becomes the focus for this age group. Educational toys that children use as props in pretend play help build language and communication skills. Great educational toy choices for this age include character toys, puppets, dolls, toy vehicles, and animal figures. These educational toys foster creativity and imagination by allowing your child to create wonderful adventures, model adult behavior, and role-play. Large piece puzzles are great educational toys for this age. Children at this age should be able to complete a 4 to 6 piece puzzle on their own. Puzzles are a great activity to build hand-eye coordination, problem solving, and fine motor skills.

Suggested toys for this age: Table and Chairs, Wooden Stacking Train, Airport Blocks, Maggie's Friends, Shaped Puzzles, Play and Learn Puzzles.

Educators, Don't Forget to Claim This Adjustment to Your Income

If you are a teacher teaching right from kindergarten through great 12, or if you are an instructor, principal, counselor or aide working in a school for at least 900 hours during a school year, you are eligible educator according to IRS. In that case, you can deduct an amount up to $250 towards certain costs as an adjustment to your gross income. If you are filing jointly and both you and your spouse are eligible educators, you can claim maximum $500. However, neither spouse can claim more than $250 towards his or her qualified expenditure.

What constitutes qualified expenditure?

According to IRS, it includes ordinary and necessary costs paid in connection with the education. Here is a list of such costs for your ready reference -

Books or subscriptions - These include technical books, professional textbooks, professional publications, publication journals, newspapers, magazines and journals.

Teaching aids - They can be films, slides and other materials.

Education costs - These can include books, papers, writing materials, hotel/motel expenses, expenses towards professional development.

Tools and supplies - These can include camera, films, classroom supplies, locks, lockers, supplies, postage, stationery, tape recorders, tapes, flashlight, briefcase and other classroom supplies.

Cost towards uniforms - These can include expenses on dry cleaning, lab coats, sports clothing, goggles, school logo items, T shirts, hats, special use items.

Auto costs - These can include costs towards meetings at other schools, transport of students and transportation during training.

Miscellaneous costs - including costs for computer usage, professional license, cell phone, field trips etc.

Remember, an ordinary expenditure which is common and excepted in your educational field can be qualified as expense eligible for deduction. They have a common logic - costs which are helpful and appropriate for your profession as an educator.

There are certain costs specifically disqualified by IRS such as expenditure for home schooling, expenses for non athletic supplies for courses in health or physical education.

You need to reduce the qualified expenses by the following amounts -
Tax free distribution of interest under an education savings bond program.
Tax free distribution of earnings from a qualified due SH and program.
Tax for the distribution of earnings from a Coverdell education savings account (ESA).
Any reimbursement you receive towards these expenses and not reported on your form W-2.By filling your tax return, this deduction can be claimed on line 23 on form 1040 or line 16 on form 1040A.

If your cost of a particular item is more than $250, there is one more method to claim it. Suppose it is $1000, you can claim $250 as educator expenses under this category and the balance $750 can be claimed as a miscellaneous itemized deduction.

There are all sorts of financial decisions you take in your life. You make gifts to your children; you make investments and acquire real estate. Do you really know the tax implications of these decisions, which can save you thousands of dollars?

ABA Training Materials Can Allow Schools and Parents to Work From the Same Page

When teaching a child with autism spectrum disorder to develop new skills or to learn new patterns of behavior, one of the most detrimental things to the learning process is a different method of teaching between school and home. Autistic children thrive on routine, and the very heart of proper teaching lies in repetition. ABA therapy has long been known to be the most effective method of teaching autistic children, and DVD training courses can be an excellent way to keep parents and teachers on the same page.

There is no doubt that school systems these days are largely underfunded. Many teachers find themselves paying for classroom materials out of their own pockets just to ensure that students are given the best opportunity to learn. This makes it especially difficult for a school system to pay for teachers from each school to receive ABA training. The good news, however, is that it is also possible for a school board to purchase a DVD training course that offers the same skills and methods while alleviating a large percentage of the financial burden. A single course can educate a large number of teachers.

By purchasing ABA training materials for both parents and school systems, it becomes much easier to ensure that a child is being given consistent training and teaching. These shared courses, offered in conjunction with regular parent-teacher meetings can help ensure consistency and can offer kids a great opportunity to learn and to make their way towards being able to fully interact in a classroom comprised of their peers. Autistic children are very capable of learning and are often quite intelligent, and ABA therapy offers a means of unlocking a child's maximum potential so that they are able to learn quickly and effectively.

There are few things that can help an autistic student more than teaching that is consistent between home and school. With top quality ABA training materials, educators and parents alike will find that it is easy to stay on the same page while using proven methods of teaching. We all hope that our children and students will receive a comprehensive education, and when an affordable training class may be all that stands in the way, it is certainly a small price to pay to help offer these children a better start on education and life in general.

Garrett Butch is the father of a 6 year old with autism and the founder of Maximum Potential Group.

How to Find Valuable Educational Toys with the Best Price

Have you ever found difficulties in finding toys for your children? Do you know the important aspects of appropriate toys for them? What you will see below are some helpful advice to help you find the best for your little ones.

Children learn through toys and play about colors, shapes, sounds, and numbers. It helps them develop their eye-hand coordination and manual dexterity, helping them later on to compare their experience and use their imagination to talk.

It is difficult to judge a toy for its effectiveness in teaching children and some toys that look helpful in their boxes lose their potential when they are taken out.

Nevertheless, learning how to recognize the play value of a toy is a skill that can be acquired over time. One thing to understand is that the child should be given a toy geared towards his or her age group, as it is not sensible to think that advanced toys would help the child's learning to grow faster.

- Toys should not promote a single thought or concept; instead, they should promote creativity and thinking skills. Toys based on a single concept, such as a math toy normally is not played with and it is better to roll the dice and let the child add the numbers towards a certain goal as it is fun as well as educational.

- Toys should cater to individual developmental skills such as miniature replicas of household products for toddlers to gain an understanding of how things function.

- Toys that can be played in a number of ways serve as great educational tools. For example, blocks will never disappear simply because they provide the toddler understandings of gravity by helping them build and knock down towers, while enhancing creativity in older children who build castles out of them to create their own worlds.

- Toys should be checked for durability and safety before being bought. Durability is extremely important so that the toy is played with and remains helpful in developmental skills.

- Children tend to clamor for the latest toys that might not serve any educational purpose, like trend figures that can be played only in their specific roles and cannot be expanded towards thinking that is more creative. Instead of breaking your child's heart by not buying them their favorite action figure, it is better to buy them a jigsaw of the figure or playing cards, games, and books too.

- A toy is good if it is fun for the child to play with. Buying toys that can be played in a number of ways would be a wise decision to invest in as they would be played with for a long period of time and would give the maximum learning experience to the child.

The basic principles of toy selection include the following:

- Suitable Design: For the correct age group with the best concept, colors, and materials, with concise and crystal clear instructions.

- Quality: The quality of workmanship and relation of materials used with colors and shapes define it.

- Durability: It is of the utmost importance as children can break even the best of the toys.

- Safety: Protection is vital for the children from toys with splintered edges, flammability, and the use of toxic materials.

- Educational: By providing instructions so that the parents can explain the use of the toy to the child in simple terms.

- Creative: To help the child develop their imagination, you must be able to use the toy in alternate ways by creating new games, and play with it.

- Cost: It should be another factor that should be considered since similar toys may have a major cost difference.

- Play Value: So that the toys are long lasting and the child enjoys playing with it for as long as possible, each time giving the child newer developmental skills and encouraging the child to play again and again with newer insights into the way things work.

- Quality vs. Quantity: Too many toys could overwhelm the child and hamper the child's creative development, as the child may not be able to concentrate on a single toy for long enough, hence rendering the toys useless. The whole purpose of giving the child a toy is to develop the creative thinking and skills and not give the idea that more toys mean more happiness.

Following the above guidelines would ensure the promotion of the purpose of learning through play by helping your child's developmental skills to improve with time no matter what age your child is.

Good Homeschooling Materials Are the Key to Successful Homeschooling

Homeschooling, as it is considered in developed countries, is an alternative to enrolling children in private or public schools. For parents who do not approve of materials, educational environment, teachers, or similar other school related things homeschooling might seem as if it is a good fit for children. Although the children are the ones who would be benefiting, the parents would be in charge of teaching them.

This idea intimidates many parents who either do not think they will be able to make the commitment because of work or because they have no confidence in their abilities to be good teachers.

Where these are valid concerns they might also be seen as excuses. If a parent wants to see that their child receives the best education and they are not satisfied with their child's development, they should consider homeschooling. Parents can make learning fun for children. There is a burgeoning community of homeschoolers and educators for support.

Many people are satisfied with the way children are educated in the twenty-first century. This may be because many children do excel in the current system. Wherever there are success stories there are also the not so successful ones and the stories where children dislike school but go anyway because schooling is compulsory. For these children, homeschooling might be the best option.

There are many choices for homeschooling materials out there to help your child succeed. Homeschooling materials can be found on websites that act as online communities for homeschoolers and their students. Whether the teacher wants to use a curriculum or not, they are available at: educator supply stores, county and state offices of education, encyclopedia companies, homeschooling suppliers, teacher college libraries, and Internet Databases. One of the popular resources that is available for homeschoolers is the Home Education Magazine.

Education Definition and Its Importance

Education is also known by many other names such as learning, teaching, and schooling. The term is derived from the Latin word 'educatio' ('a bringing', 'a rearing', 'a bringing up') which is related to other Latin words 'educo' ('I train', I educate'), the homonym 'educo' ('I raise up', 'I take out', 'I erect', 'I lead forth'), and 'duco' ('I lead, I conduct'). Generally, education is the act or experience which affects the formation of one's character, mind, and physical ability. Technically, the term refers to the process by which society intentionally transmits accumulated values, skills, as well as knowledge from the older generation to the younger. Essentially, education covers all instructions and discipline which are aimed at correcting the temper, enlightening the understanding, forming manners and habits, and giving useful skills for children in order to be used in their future.

The process of education includes three major aspects - instruction (learning facilitation delivered by a teacher or tutor), teaching (the action done by the teacher or tutor as an instructor to deliver the learning materials to the students), and learning (an action done by those who are taught to receive knowledge, abilities, or skills that may be useful in the future).

A school can be seen as a place where we learn about life before we jump into the real world. School prepares students to deal with various problems in life. However, nowadays you can still find education systems that put emphasis on the importance of memorizing facts and figures, as well as achieving good grades. Instead of eliciting the learner's appetite for knowledge, these things will only discourage them. Children who are stuffed with facts are figures have the tendency to become passive individuals who are less motivated to think, ask questions, and throw new ideas.

To encourage students to learn more and more new things, educators must provide them with new ideas and new ways of thinking. Besides the conventional textbooks, children should be introduced new education materials from their surroundings as well as from the internet. There are thousands of learning methods and materials available out there. If you are a parent, encourage your child to find the best way of learning, that way education will be a fun activity instead of a boring one. A good method should encourage children to think, not follow a lesson. The combination of learning and practice (or action) will encourage the children to make mistakes and learn from them. Nobody is perfect and it is not a crime to make a mistake. With the right approach, instead of being embarrassed of making some errors and mistakes, children will wisely learn from them and eventually become better individuals with better understanding about themselves and how things work.

Instead of bombarding children with repetitions of learning materials, education will be more effective if students are given the encouragement and chance to give their own opinions and arguments about even the simplest matter. While teaching materials are usually delivered orally, visual materials as well as observation are also very important.

PhD in Curriculum and Instruction For Better Education Materials and Methods

As any well-meaning teacher is aware, each student works at a speed which ticks according to his or her academic clock. Even in a class of supposedly smart students, everyone understands what is taught at varying rates and degrees. Hence, the skill in drawing up an effective curriculum is very often an art and science bundled together. With experience gained from many years of teaching and observing people, such a professional is best suited to pursue a PhD in Curriculum and Instruction to make an impact in the education system.

A PhD in this specialization revolves around much research on what and how best to teach people to comprehend, retain and pass on knowledge. Once this can be successfully accomplished, it also provides some guarantee that future generations benefit from what their predecessors have learnt and pass onto them. We often see present curriculum development and technology not in accordance with the times as students are thought based on what was evident eons back. Although it is important to reflect on history, it is just as crucial not to dwell on it. With little or no exposure to the present, there are no means to deal with the good and bad of today. It's likened to food without salt. Although it may give you nourishment, it is bland and not appetizing enough for a second helping.

By being a professional in the teaching or curriculum field, equipping yourself with a PhD in Curriculum and Instruction allows you to delve deeper into mapping an effective curriculum according to target student group. As part of your PhD research, you will cover and identify suitable methods of instruction and assessment for said curriculum. You then seek balance between the cognitive and behavioral approaches. Theories of learning by thought as compared to behavior are to be handled accordingly. Putting in layman's terms, sometimes you see to learn and other times, you learn to see.

This PhD program encompasses a wide spectrum of curriculum levels and areas. Specialization can be in the study of the curriculum development and technology itself or by disciplines such as languages, sciences, mathematics. They may focus from elementary to middle school to tertiary levels, or even concentrate on adult teaching or special education. Whichever it may be, there are various areas for one who is interested to improve the current curriculum to produce a wiser generation with practical capabilities.