Word's count more than Opinion's Do............Mukesh Kulal

Source ISBN no:0-521-45062-4 the rebirth of educational toy: It is important to note that the label educational toy is by no means a new invention. The purpose of toys has practically always been educational. it is intresting to note that up to the seventeenth century the word toy was synomynous with "any pretty commodity, a thing of no great value," reflecting the attitudes towards toys. One who may be given credit for a changed attitude towards toys at that time was the English philosopher John Locke, who claimed that toys and play could be used in the education of young children. Locke even produced a toy, a set of letter blocks that was meant not only to teach children the alphabet. Rather than teaching children specific skills, however, these educational devices became "an incentive to keep children indoors, where they could be governed by tutors rather than by their rough brethen on the streets" (Sutton-Smith, 1986, p.119). The first truimphal march of the e...

The properties of particular kinds of toys, their realism, or structured quality, their mechanical complexity, and their relationship to household or adventurous functions, are all issues that may bear on thier value for imaginative play. A very simple toy or object can simulate a lengthy imaginative play. Specific toys are purchased for their educational values. Kurt Lewin(1954) and more recently to Brofenbrenner(1979) conceptualises the environment and toys more specifically in transaction terms. By transaction it is meant the ways in which children and toys influence each other.

The various types of play are: 1) Social Contingency play: A game where there is enjoyment in the response of others, often contingent on your behaviour or on imitation of one person by others. 2) Sensorimotor Play: It refers to activities with objects(or ones own body ) that are based on the sensory properties of the object(s), for example sucking objects, banging blocks together. 3) Object Play: Children take part in lot of activities with objects; much of this being construction play. Fitting Lego blocks together, making block towers, using modeling clay, pouring water from one container to another, might count as object play. 4) Language Play: Children can play with noises, syllables, words and phrases. 5) Physical activity play: This play refers to gross bodily movements. This is a vigorous social form of physical play, involving grappling, wrestling, kicking, chasing and other behaviors that would be aggressive in a nonplayful context. This is often called play-fighting or play-c...

Source: Children and Play Peter K Smith ISBN: 978-0-631-23521-7 978-0-631-23522-4 The Encarta World English Dictionary (1999) gives many meanings for "play,", but the first two are those relevant for us: (1) to take part in enjoyable activity for the sake of amusement, and (2) to do something for fun, not in the earnest.