For preschoolers' gifts, think 'low tech,' future teachers say

Forget "Baby Einstein." When it comes to purchasing the best gifts for preschoolers this holiday season, stay low tech and go "old school."

At least that's the advice of a group of early childhood education majors at Rowan University, who have researched the best gifts for preschoolers as part of their class work.

The students have found that the gifts that work best to promote children's social, cognitive, emotional, language and motor skills don't have bells, whistles, or plugs. In fact, most of them don't even use batteries.

Their recommendations include classics such as Play Doh and Chutes and Ladders to newer toys such as Smooshies (soft, Mr. Potato Head-like dolls with removable parts) and The Amazing Peanut Ball (especially good for kids with special needs). A list of 10 of the students' gift recommendations is below.

"Imagination in play is just so important," says Tori Orio, a senior early childhood education, special education, and sociology major. "For children, using play to learn is so downplayed in our society, but it's really vital."

In their coursework in Professor Karen Hutchison's "Growth & Learning: Birth to Five" class, the students were charged with researching toys, books, games, and songs that best adhere to New Jersey Preschool Teaching & Learning Expectations.

The students assessed the toys and activities they found based on how they helped children reach cognitive, social, emotional, language and motor skills milestones.

"Play right now is not being valued. It's being trivialized," says Hutchison, who, until joining Rowan this fall, served as the "expert on play" at the Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, N.Y.

"It's important for teachers to be advocates of play. Through this assignment, our teacher candidates saw that right away.

"They picked very well-rounded toys, things that involve creativity and collaboration. And they didn't go for technology at all, which surprised me. They really thought about this wisely."

The students also learned how their research into the educational theories offered by folks like Albert Bandura, B.F. Skinner, Jean Piaget and others can inform not only their teaching, but all of their interactions with children.

Students are compiling their research and recommendations to share with teachers, parents, PTA leaders, and other child-oriented community groups. Additionally, the students have teamed up to donate toys they endorse to community organizations such as the Glassboro Child Development Center, the Robin's Nest, and Rowan's Early Childhood Demonstration Center.

"The research did make a difference in my Christmas shopping," says senior early childhood education and writing arts major Kat Roberts, the mother of a two-year-old son.

"I was really surprised by the educational toys out there. Everything is so commercialized these days. Hopefully, our brochures will help open parents' eyes to the different options out there for children."

"We're tying the toys into the standards we'll have to use in teaching, but, also for when we become parents," adds Orio. "I feel like I'm a preschool toy expert now."

Gifts the students recommend include:

My ABC's Thumball
Promotes language arts literacy, pro-social behaviors, motor skills, supporting Bandura's social learning theory.

Play-Doh Fun with Food
This toy promotes Piaget's theory of cognitive development in which kids create symbols for things in their immediate environment. Works to improve kids' fine motor skills, engage in pretend play, learn through dramatic play and storytelling, and develop knowledge of healthy food choices.

Magneatos
Develops fine motor skills, promotes understanding of numbers and one-to-one correspondence, and helps develop spatial cognition.

Megaland
Encourages imaginary and cooperate play and develops gross motor skills and pro-social behavior.

Smooshies
Like a soft Mr. Potato Head, this toy provides never-ending, imaginative play, promotes creativity, and helps develop language skills.

The Amazing Peanut Ball
Great for kids with special needs, the ball has a contoured saddle seat that challenges kids' motor skills by requiring balance and focus.

Uno Moo Farm Animal Matching Game
Helps teach children to take turns, notice and identify patterns.

Dr. Seuss' My Many Colored Days kit
Includes a book, a music CD, and colorful scarves all designed to promote dramatic play, dance and movement, and socialization.

Chutes and Ladders
An exciting up-and-down adventure game for little ones, this classic game doesn't require reading skills and promotes social and emotional milestones, hands-on learning, and math literacy.

My Friend Isabelle by Eliza Wolosn
A book about two friends, one of whom has Down Syndrome, it teaches diversity and appreciation of storytelling and promotes language development and expressions of individuality.