Playing is the best way of learning for children. It allows them to acquire knowledge through experimenting, discovering and observing. This helps them to learn more about life, the environment and themselves. Also, the process of playing allows them to develop important cognitive, academic, emotional and social skills. Have you ever asked yourself what your kids get out of pretending to be a doctor or a princess? For instance, as kids pretend to work in the supermarket selling different foods, or pretend to cook in their play kitchen, they are enhancing some skills that are crucial for their healthy development.
When it comes to pretend play toys, wooden play food is something that any child should own for a lot of reasons. Besides being fun to play with, it is also the perfect way for kids to boost their fine motor skills, dexterity and visual recognition of patterns, colours, and shapes. These pretend play toys allow kids to communicate more and socialize. Even when they are playing alone with food, they are still encouraged to use their vocabulary.
There are so many food toys out there so finding some that your kid will like can be challenging. Picking individual toy foods can easily leave you with a lot of the same products without realizing. For that reason, buying a wooden food box is a great way to start building up your kid’s food collection. You can choose between harvest vegetables, fruits or meat in a crate, a box with fish, eggs and dairy and many more.
On the other hand, you can choose an entire play wooden market stall where your kids can keep all their food toys organized and stored. Some of these stalls feature wheels that allow for easy moving throughout the house. This is an amazing role-play toy that will bring out your child’s inner entrepreneur. Furthermore, it boosts the development of speech, social skills, sharing and turn taking through imaginative play. Some of them come with food products but you can always purchase a few more separately so your kids can have full shelves of products to sell.
If you want to buy toys that will provide the best value for your money, keep the play value in mind. In other words, bear in mind the essential value of the toy or simply said, the amount of play your child can get out of it. So if you want to increase the play value of the food toy, consider buying something extra that will make playing more interesting for your kids. For example, you can buy just a box of food, but buying a play wooden market stall as well where your kids will store and sell their products, or a kitchen where they can cook will encourage them to play more and longer with their food toys.
Nevertheless, this does not mean that you should buy everything yourself. You can never buy enough of these toys, so you can involve the grandparents and relatives in this spreading of happiness as well. Telling your relatives what your child would like for Christmas or for their birthday would make it a lot easier for you. It is a win-win combination – knowing what to buy will save your friends and family a lot of time, plus, your kids will be very happy for receiving their favorite toys as gifts from people they have never expected them from.
