The best educational toy for toddlers

Disney is offering exchanges for books and CDs for people who bought Baby Einstein DVDs from June 5, 2004 and September 4, 2009 as educational aids.  Because they aren't educational at all - and studies show that children under 2 who watch DVDs (any DVDs) have a smaller vocabulary than their peers. I remember when these were "all the rage".  Besides the fact that the music and the imagery made me a bit batty, I found research where the logic was so rational and obvious that I was sure these were not good for kids.

If you want details on the rationale for the Disney guarantee, Thingamababy has a great write up.  

When my eldest was born, I became a voracious reader on the development of children's brains - particularly boy brains since I didn't have brothers, male cousins or any other exposure to little boys growing up - except in school where we each had sufficient cooties to stay separated.  Check out Our Resources for my brief reading list.  

What I learned was that any sort of electronic play - DVDs, games, read to me books - create too narrow a range of responses. In effect, they are thwarting creativity and imaginary play.  So the very best toy, according to What's Going on in There, are wood blocks.  Classic, quiet and endless fun.

Update on Sunday, October 25, 2009 at 1:42PM by Joelle - a Practical Parent

This was an interesting link about developmentally appropriate and advantageous toys and why they are so.

Marvelous Marbles

We are the proud owners of an Imaginarium Deluxe Marble Race. Tonight, my boys (and the girl, although not directly) asked me to help them build a big Marble Race,following the plans in the instructions.

We built it and as we were doing it, Benjamin pointed out things that he thought wouldn't work. But we kept building. When it was done, we tested it - and a few things didn't work right. They were the ones he mentioned during construction.

He then told me that if we reversed two pieces in the middle, the whole thing would function. We carefully isolated the pieces and reversed them - and now it worked perfectly. I have to marvel at his spacial reasoning and mechanical/civil engineering capabilities - I couldn't see the mistake and I wouldn't have been able to fix it.

Here's the marble race...and yes, we keep the marbles themselves up high and watch Ariel when we race them. She likes to put Marbles on the track and we let her do that - supervised. Let me know what you are amazed by with your kids.