Kids like to create huge things, yet huge things are usually expensive or massive, so what about turning ordinary objects into kids design? Drinking straws or unwanted cardboard boxes are a perfect example of low-cost objects that can challenge children to think at an architectural scale and become pilots of their own starships.
Children have an innate love for stories. Stories allow kids to communicate thoughts and share feelings with others and it can be innovatively improved using wooden toys that can teach kinetic arts.
LINKKI from Eun Young Park on Vimeo.
LINKKI is a kinetic construction toy based on planar linkage mechanism which children can use to design movements, make kinetic arts and learn basic STEM subjects while playing.
I have always been wondering what a toy designer that cares for education is supposed to do in order to bring his/her vision to the market, and so to the people.
Now, learning by play is the best way for children to have their young minds open and free, facilitating the exploration of new skills. In this sense a toy designer that cares for education at first should find out how to engage kids with what he/she intends to teach. For instance Maths.
It is a latest trend the one of making kids inventors of their own toys by helping them to make real their ideas, inviting them to start creating lifelike structures that they can really use. Suppose that you get a great idea but, you do not know how you can transform it into something real..
Hospitals usually are uncomfortable and unfamiliar places for kids; examinations and operations are a cause of anxiety and fear in the little patients. Play therapy and toys for hospital preparation can relieve these feelings by informing and preparing children about what to expect during their hospital visit.
In order to allow children to play freely, encouraging in this way the development of skills non gender-related, there is probably the need to develop educational toys without gender roles, that basically is not to restrict gender to stereotypes.
Parents with both sons and daughters often see differences in the way their kids play. There are toys that define male or female typical play, but what kids do with their toys alone?
Design for kids in days of routines allows to make each day different and more special for children, where kids are also able to develop new skills and learn new things while playing and interacting with everyday products.
Nowadays, children after school have a lot of homework of different subjects, extra activities and responsibilities
Nowadays we can find increasingly how gamification or video game inspired thinking can be integrated in non-digital learning, even in wooden toys design. For example, to explore basic arithmetic, among other knowledge, will try to maximize, through play, the interest of learners.
Today we hear a lot about the need to integrate children into a cohesive learning paradigm based on real-world applications during play, and this approach is typically supported by STEM toys that lead to a new way of seeing the world, using a simultaneous combination of exploration and creative action.
“Innovative education” leads kids to get a way of thinking that is more elastic, more free, less conformed and capable to take decisions to face reality and free their potential.