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| multi-functional | or | restricted |
| versatile | or | fixed/ right-wrong use |
| extendable | limited to this one toy | |
| contained/ containable | or | too many bits/ uncontainable |
| solid/ safe | or | breakable/ hard/ unsafe |
| replaceable | or | precious/ expensive |
| interactive, social | or | solitary |
| co-operative | or | competitive |
(playing together) |
(I win/ you win) |
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| playful | or | ‘teacher-ish’ |
| fun | or | right-wrong use |
| growth-promoting | or | time-filler |
| mental, symbolic | or | sensory stimulation |
| creative | or | mechanical responses |
| imaginative | or | automatic |
Questions to ask yourself:
Does this toy encourage playfulness?
Does it encourage child to think ‘What can I (the child) do with it?’
Can it easily be made interactive/ sociable?
Can the use of this toy easily be extended?
Can it’s use easily be shared in different modalities?
e.g. visual (talking about the puzzle child is doing), singing + actions
Does this toy provide child with a sense of containment?
- both from the toy’s perspective (= not too many bits, or containers for ‘bits’) and
- from the child’s emotional point of view
i.e. does it allow playing with child’s ideas/ pre-occupations/ anxieties
e.g. mouths, holes, teeth, biting, aggression, anger, hate, loss, aloneness
Does it lend itself to more mental rather than purely sensory uses? 
Does it lend itself to early differentiation/ concept formation?
in-out, there-gone, mine-yours, this-that
Can it’s use easily be extended?
multi-functional or restricted
versatile or fixed/ right-wrong use
e.g. bricks, little people, containers, stacking beakers, marble run
not: mechanical, battery-operated, cause-effect plastic toys,
Our direction is to encourage the child to use his/ her mind more, to engage less in sensory stimulation, and to develop his/her social, interactive and imaginative, symbolic functioning.
symbolic - e.g. drawing
imagination - e.g. pretend
co-operative
picture books
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