Gifting with Purpose:
Expert Gift Buying Advice from a Seasoned Educator

Kids often learn best through play. With that in mind, look for gifting toys or activities with things to teach: like the alphabet or names of different animals, and more. Children will play with their new toy and not even realize they're learning while they play. But you'll know.

"There's a connection between the hand and the brain," explains Wendi Schoenberger, a parent as well as preschool and elementary educator of 20 years. "Starting from birth, kids are learning." And you have to be doing it to learn it, she says. For instance, kids learn the letter A by seeing it, saying it (and what it sounds like), holding it (on a toy), tracing it, dancing with it, throwing it (on a beanbag), and more. You need to expose kids to learning concepts at a young age."

Play and Learn Letters
Kids love to toss beanbags. But if the beanbags have ABCs, like our Alphabet Beanbag Set, then kids begin to recognize the look of letters (upper- and lowercase), giving a simple game of toss the power to build a solid foundation for understanding and creating written language. "If your child can recognize you in a photograph, he or she can recognize a letter," Wendi says. "Then it isn't really much more to recognize a series of letters as a word. Once they recognize the letter, have them do something with it. This is A. It sounds like Aaaah… Bring A over to the toy box. Toss A to your friend. Etc."

Take toss to the next level with Toss and Spell™, and encourage kids to aim for word-building. Toss C, then A, then T: C-A-T. With Fish N' Spell, kids can use fine motor skills to retrieve – instead of project – the letters they want to use in the order they want to use them.

Get physical with letters: Alphabet Marks the Spot™ is much like Twister, but it incorporates letter sounds and spelling games into gross motor fun. FlagHouse Alphabet Spot Markers allow you to be creative about physical activities: have kids run, hop, step or squat as they recognize the letters on the spots, and even string them together for basic spelling. "Physical activity is great for gross motor development," Wendi explains. "And often, kids just don't want to sit and play. The younger they are the more active they tend to be. A lot of times, I put things just out of a child's reach so that he or she has to move, to actively be involved in each lesson."

We've got Numbered Beanbags too! And not only do they help with recognizing the visual representation of numbers (1, 2, 3 and so on), but they also have the spelling of the words (O-N-E, etc.) and countable dots to help children understand quantity.

Increase movement beyond tossing and catch, with Numbered Spot Markers. Enhance color and shape recognition while learning the 123s with Multimatch Sensory Discs. This exciting activity requires players to match up color to color, number to number; and it comes with a handy activity guide for parents and caregivers.

There are many tools for fine motor number fun. An oldie but a goodie is an Abacus. We like our wooden, 100-bead "ancient calculator" by Melissa and Doug® because it's durable and colorful. (Did you know that the abacus dates back to a time before written numbers existed?!) Plus, with its rudimentary moving parts, an abacus is fun for little fingers. "This is great for learning one to one correspondence. You say ‘one,' and they move one bead. The abacus can be used on and on…up to double digit multiplication," Wendi says.

Counting Disks, with brightly colored disks on sorting posts, are another colorful way to teach numbers. Kids think they're just choosing how to sort and stack, when really they're counting too, learning how many disks it takes to fill up a post. And Number Puzzle Boards pose a pre-writing challenge in addition to their sorting/counting task. It takes focus and precision to count and place pegs, especially if you're adding a stacking dimension to the task.

It can also be a lot of fun to learn numbers with Match It! self-correcting puzzle cards. This game includes 30 puzzle pairs that only match each other, making it easy to teach counting, addition and subtraction.

Play and Learn Shapes
You guessed it: we've got Geometric Shapes Beanbags! And jump on the shapes with Geometric Shape Spot Markers.

"But keep in mind that, as Howard Gardner shows us, one child will learn better sitting and another through active play," Wendi says. "It's really important for a parent to incorporate all forms of play." (She's referring, of course, to Psychologist Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences: linguistic, logic-mathematical, musical, spatial, bodily/kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalistic.) That means that a great learning environment can be one with multiple exposures (ABCs on blocks, musical toys, multi-sensory panels, etc.) and a freeform approach to letting kids explore these exposures as needed.

Sort-a-Shape features brightly colored foam shapes in a sorting and stacking challenge. We especially love the whimsy of its bold colors combined with stars and hearts, in addition to the staple circle-, square- and triangle-discrimination challenge. Shape Sorter Wooden Pegboard is perfect for 3 years-old and up; while Knobbed Sorters Geometric Board is popular with younger children who are beginning to work with wooden puzzles. "Their brains are being constructive: creating order from chaos. So what might sound like housework to you (matching socks, sorting silverware, etc.) is actually fun and satisfying for them," Wendi explains. "Their brains are working something out. It's work and play."

Play and Learn Colors
All of the products we've mentioned thus far include bright and diverse colors that aid in color recognition. But our favorite color activity is making art with TriWrite Crayons. Some children struggle to hold pens, pencils, paintbrushes and crayons; but TriWrite Crayons are extra-wide and shaped like pyramids. Not only do they instill color understanding, but they also enable most children to be creative, and gain confidence from artistic self-expression.

Learning colors can be easy and fun with arts and crafts! Try Easy Squeezy Paints (non-toxic and washable) and Funky Brushes to get kids started with painting. And if you're worried about the stains, No Mess Art & Craft Studio takes the mess of kiddie art and confines it to a transparent box. This is also a terrific alternative for children with autism and other developmental challenges – or almost anyone with anxiety – if they become agitated by spots and spills on skin, clothing and nearby surfaces.

"I think that anyone can make use of these tips," Wendy concludes. It's easy: "Instead of providing plain beanbags, give kids ABC beanbags…and so on." The rest will fall into place as children play with purpose.

About Wendi Schoenberger