Talk:Pre-school education/Essential toys

Essential Preschool Part 1

Preschool may be essential for children, one has to remember that in the dynamics of or educational system today. Stress factors are higher on our children and placed upon them at an earlier age.

I ask is this right?

I feel that the only way for children to learn is in a safe environment (rather at home or at preschool) and where the child has the opportunity to explore their world. This can take place in many ways. Exploration is vital for the brain to connect experiences to the symbols of letters and numbers that we present to our children. We have to remember that the brain grows in steps and cognitively may not be ready for just the flash card way of learning. You have to learn to crawl before you can walk! Same with learning. We can not jump steps in learning. The child may be able to repeat what you have taught them and even point the letter or number out. But can they relate that letter or number to the value it represents? We as educators and parents have to provide the child the one to one correlation learning opportunity so they can cement the concept in their minds!!!

Not only does hands-on activity and exploration provide valuable learning of letters and numbers, most importantly this gives the child the chance to relate for themselves, science, geometry, socialization, and many other skills and learning abilities the chance to develop, connect, and grow.

Preschool is essential. I call it childhood!!!!

MKS of California
source

About "Eco-Toys" section

This contains a project to describe education toys made from scrap lumber discards and other Adaptive Reuse materials.

• They can be made by each individual in every neighborhood rather than by centralized bureaucratic commercial toy companies

• The personal involvement of the parent or mentor extends to sharing the learning experience one-to-one, hands-on with the infant or toddler, pre-eminently outdoors and in family context

• No living tree is sacrificed to make any of the toys described; as children grow, opportunity is taken to make them aware of this option to obtain what we need from deadwood rather than through ecocide

• Very young children can participate in making toys for even younger children

• The "grain" and other features encountered in wood pieces are a primary education benefit-- teacher and student learn together how to co-divine-- or co-design-- true "intelligent design" in/from each "no two alike" stick specimen, then promanifest it through cheap affordable low-tech procedures such as sawing and sanding, especially by flatsmoothing the "cross-grain" surfaces where the growth rings can be minutely examined

• Theories in support of the products, how they educate and so on, and how to teach best education toy manufacturing methods, attract co-workers and co-marketers, can be added to this article and others here on Wv. Manufacturing technical directions, curricula for workshop seminars etc. can hopefully be published on wikiHow.com and wikibooks.org and linked here? Everyone with product ideas, and diagrams or photos thereof, is urged to contribute to this article, or steal its ideas and sell them somewhere, anyway maximum ed is the cred.

• With luck perhaps a nonprofit network of woodworking shops can spring up planetwide promoting pro-reforestation early education devices and using our wiki articles in some useful way.

Treedesigner 20:20, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

What would be really helpful I think would be any pictures of these toys that you or any participants could provide. Countrymike 20:24, 6 March 2008 (UTC)