Toys that Help Children Develop Spatial, Creative and Social Skills
We recently read this newsletter article from the Child Development Institute which beautifully articulates the wonderful developmental benefits of toys. An article published by the Association of Psychological Science in January 2015 found that children who play frequently with puzzles, construction, and board games tend to have better spatial reasoning ability. They studied the play … Read more
Product Review – Three Little Piggies from Smart games
This is a logic game from Smart Games, which is marketed for 3 year olds to 6 year olds. We tried it with a 3 ½ year old and a 5 ½ year old. The game: Three Little Piggies is graded into 4 levels of difficulty, and each level is marked and colour coded. There … Read more
Development Series: The First Year of a Baby’s Life
DEVELOPMENT IN THE FIRST YEAR OF LIFE The first year of a baby’s life is crammed full of development in all areas: sensory, gross motor, fine motor and language. Parents often find themselves wondering what they should be doing with their little ones to enhance these areas of development, so here is some information on … Read more
Strong to the Core – Developing Children’s Core Strength through Exercise & Play
If you have ever done pilates, or other similar forms of exercise, you will know that strengthening the core is key. Why is this so important? Your core (which is essentially the muscles in your trunk – the abdominals and back muscles) forms a stable base from which the muscles of the shoulders and pelvis … Read more
Why Dolls Play is so Good for Child Development
The doll is one of those toys which has been around for generations, and continues to delight boys and girls alike. There are so many good reasons for your little ones to play with dolls (boys and girls)…read on to see why Dolls help to develop your child’s cognitive, fine motor and self- help skills, … Read more
The Importance of Shape and Colour
Have you ever wondered why there is such a focus on learning colours and shapes in the early years? It’s because these are two very noticeable attributes of the world around us. Look outside: green trees, brown rectangle buildings, square windows, and blue sky. Colours and shapes are ways children observe and categorise what they … Read more
Are your kids spending enough time in active play?
We thought we would kick off the year with some thoughts and guidelines for activity levels in children – something to ponder over, and hopefully plan around, to give your children the best chance for fitness and health. The Canadian Physical Activity guidelines say the following: INFANTS Infants under 1 year should be physically … Read more
How much television should kids be watching?
We are often asked by parents just how much television or electronic media time they should be exposing their young kids to, and they are equally often shocked when we tell them that research suggests the answer is very little, or none at all! While TV can often be the convenient answer for a bit … Read more
What Makes a Toy Educational?
This article featured in the Nov/Dec issue of Your Baby: Nicole Hilburn, paediatric physiotherapist and owner of Brightbeans Toys, has the following recommendations per age group Which toys at what age? Baby A baby develops rapidly in all areas in his first year– cognitive, language, sensory, and gross and fine motor skills. From a play perspective, he won’t have … Read more
Our first blog on…..what else but child development!
Welcome to the Brightbeans blog! We have started this blog as a place to share thoughts and information, latest news and most importantly to hear from you! We hope to cover topics like child-development, great toys, parenting challenges and anything else you want to talk about! Ask The Experts – If you have questions on child-development, … Read more