If you are worried about maintaining your imagination in this increasingly online world, many creative toys can help. The best toys for imagination play can be used for many different things, and they are often simple, wooden or plastic, and battery-free. When selecting toys, choosing some that will encourage creativity and imagination for any child's development is essential.
Play is work for children, and toys are the tools they use to do that work. Through play, children learn how to interact with the world around them and develop muscle control, hand-eye coordination, balance, object permanence, stacking, and how things work. Toys also assist in learning how to interact with other people and process stuff they have seen or heard throughout the day.
As adults and older children learn through reading and experience, young children, including toddlers and babies, learn about their world through their experiences with people, toys, animals, and sounds. Everything that they interact with provides them with information about the world and how they are part of it.
With so many electronic toys and those that need adult supervision, use screens, and others, it can be challenging to know where to look for essential toys that can be used independently. Small, independent book and toy stores will each have a selection of toys; in some cases, they may be locally made. Educational supply stores are also great places for simple toys that grow imagination and bolster creativity. Historical areas may also have toys that are made to mirror those from earlier decades, which will encourage imaginative play. Yard and garage sales will also have a wide variety of toys, often from many years or decades, which might provide more varied toys than a local box store or mall. Hardware stores may also have a variety of toys, especially for outdoor use and for older kids who are beginning to build things and create their items.
Look for wooden stacking and building toys such as building blocks, Lincoln Logs, Lego or Duplo, etc. Infant toys include the ring stacker, block sorter, and soft or chewable toys. Food, wooden kitchens, and dolls are all standard traditional and easily located toys that encourage creative play and can help children work through things they learn or see during their day. Puzzles are great for learning hand-eye coordination, how to judge what shape fits where, and distance and size.
Water toys help us learn how water moves, feels, and works with the world. Boats and other floating toys are ideal for bath time, small water shooters, rubber ducky-type toys for imaginative play, and water tables that show how water moves downward and flows. A marble run can be used for water when they are younger and then be used for marbles in later years, displaying gravity while also providing children to interact with the world in new ways and to create stories of their toys and characters and where they are going, why they are near water, and what they will do next.
Sand toys or sensory bins are also great for imaginative play. Shovels and buckets, vehicles that drive across or move sand, and other sand toys will help children learn about textures and how to pack the sand to create shapes. They will use their hands to form and move things, often with a goal creation in mind. Measuring cups and spoons, containers, and others are great in sand, and the sensory bins are made from pasta, rice, dried beans, and other nonperishable items. These are easy to find and help to learn about textures, weights, shapes and sizes, and how things all feel differently.
Toys are the key to helping children learn about the world around them and develop their skills and capabilities. They are toys they will reach for and grasp, remember to carry and put down, organize and throw. Hand-eye coordination and muscle control are all developed through play. While many electronic toys and battery-operated ones can be fun and teach some things, it is also necessary to have simple toys that provide the opportunity to engage the imagination and find new ways to interact with them and the world. Simple items from the kitchen, like mixing bowls and spoons, measuring cups and spoons, and pots and pans, are all well suited to creative play and will help them learn about cooking and even measuring as they grow.