Dr. Toy's Smart PLAY Smart Toys – Expanded & Updated 4th Edition. Stevanne Auerbach

don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.”

      — GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

      Completely Revised 4th Edition

      Copyright ©1998, 2004, 2006, 2014 by Stevanne Auerbach, Ph.D.

      Dr. Toy ® is a trademark of Stevanne Auerbach, © Stevanne Auerbach (1998, 2014). All rights reserved.

      [Paperback]

      ISBN-13: 978-1-58790-275-8

      ISBN-10: 1-58790-275-3

      [E-Book]

      ISBN-13: 978-1-58790-276-5

      ISBN-10: 1-58790-276-1

      Library of Congress Catalog Number: 2014940917

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Auerbach, Stevanne

      Dr. Toy’s smart play smart toys: how to raise a child with a high PQ/Stevanne Auerbach.—1st. ed.

      p. cm.

      ISBN

      1. Play—Psychological aspects. 2. Toys—Psychological aspects.

      3. Child development. I. Title

      BF717.A94 2004

      649'1—dc21

      Manufactured in the U.S.A.

      REGENT PRESS

       www.regentpress.net

       ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

      I wish to express my heartfelt appreciation to:

      

The children I have watched during play, with and without toys.

      

Parents, grandparents and others who shared their experiences about their own childhood and their questions.

      

Teachers who seek to find balance in the classroom between the curriculum and spontaneous, enthusiastic learning through play activities.

      

Toy, game, and other children’s products manufacturers, inventors and designers who strive to create safe and appropriate products for all ages.

      

Toy stores of all sizes and kinds throughout the world who provide the best toys and products they can offer.

      

Professional friends who shared their views, research, and experiences on learning, play and toys.

      

My daughter Amy and grandson Josiah who have played with me and taught me so much.

      

The parents and professionals from the USA and around the world who reviewed and commented on the value of this book.

      

Special supporters: Andrew Levison, Esq., Angie Niehoff, Aimee Zawitz, Alex Fazio, Amy Auerbach, Arthur Young, Ben Simon-Thomas, Brian White, Carol Brittain, Esq., David Singer, Doug Miller, Ellen Looyen, Gail Valeski, Gina Moreland, Greg Walsh, Harry Nizamian, Jennie Ito, PhD, Jim Dugan, Jim Whitney, Julien Mayot, Kazuko Nishita, Laurie Harper, Lynn Fraley, Matthew Hiebert, Michael Marra, Mona Zikri, PhD, Peter Brown, Ralph T. Whitten, Rhona Hartman, Richard C. Levy, Ron Weingartner, Richard X Zawitz, Robert Moog, Ron Cantor, Sandra Pelland, Sarah Itzhaki, PhD, Selina Yoon, Sharon Skolnick, Thomas Schoenberger, Virginia Davis, Wendy Lin, Yuval Manor, and Mark Weiman, publisher, Regent Press.

      

Journalists and interviewers around the world who asked the right questions to better understand the importance of play and toys.

      

Claude Choquette and Jean-Sebastian Dufresne, Montreal Contacts, who always believed and supported Dr. Toy’s Smart Play/Smart Toys, to reach around the world.

       COMMENTS on PLAY & TOYS

      Play is not automatic. It is learned. The importance of play for children has been well researched and demonstrated. For example, did you ever consider that play is one of the most important areas of activity in which children engage as they grow and develop? Did you know that play has been shown to contribute positively to a child’s later academic learning? Did you know that play is one of the most important factors in a child’s learning how to interact with other children? Did you know that language development could be enhanced through children’s play? Did you know that the abstract thinking, developed through play, forms a critical basis for a child’s later learning in school, as well as exerting a strong influence into adult life? Have you, as an adult, ever participated in imaging exercises? Did you know that there is a direct relationship between your own childhood play and your ability to image creatively and imaginatively project what should happen within your work organization or within your own family? These linkages become increasingly clear as you use this fine reference book. An entire volume devoted to the many nuances of children’s development as seen from the perspective of children’s play is both timely and very welcome. Throughout her book, Dr. Auerbach describes through many helpful examples, ways to develop and enhance a child’s “Play Quotient.”

       — EDGAR KLUGMAN, PHD

       Professor, Early Education, Wheelock College

      Much more is being learned about play than we would have expected a decade ago. A new period of research on play is underway. The new work begins to suggest why play is the principal business of childhood, the vehicle of improvisation and combination, the first carrier of rule systems through which a world of cultural restraint is substituted for the operation of impulse. If the rule structure of human play and games sensitizes the child to the rules of culture, both generally and in preparation for a particular way of life, then surely play must have some special role in nurturing symbolic activity generally.

       — JEROME BRUNER, PHD

       Child’s Play

      All children learn through active participation, by being involved in a practical way, and by attempting to do something themselves, particularly by using their hands. Montessori put great emphasis on this connection between the brain and movement: Watching the child makes it obvious that the development of his mind comes about through his movements, she felt. She believed the process of learning had three parts: the brain, the senses, and the muscles, and that all three must cooperate for learning to take place. To start with, they learn through play, through experimenting with things in the world around them—for example, the idea that water is wet, that it can be hot or cold, that it can be poured from one container into another, as well as lots of other things, will be learned by your baby or child through playing with water in the bathroom or the