Article Link: http://www.exchangepress.com/article/guidelines-for-purchasing-educational-toys/5011529/
While toys constitute a small portion of your budget, they are critically important to shaping the experiences children have at your center. In addition, they constitute a major risk you take on in providing services to children. Not only do you want to be sure that a toy has sound educational value for children, you must also have assurance that it does not represent a threat to the health and safety of children.To help you in making wise purchasing choices, we have compiled the following guidelines to consider in purchasing toys. These guidelines are based on the advice of the manufacturers and dealers listed at the end of this article.
While some of these guidelines will provide you with specific criteria that you can investigate yourself, others are not so easy to consider. For example, if you are unaware of the track record of the seller, your best source of evaluation will be feedback from other center directors.
Evaluating the Value of Educational Toys
Appeal and stimulation. Educational toys must capture children's interest so that further exploration is pursued by questions or actions. Many skills are learned through repetition. If a toy isn't engaging, a child will only use it once or twice . ...