It is essential that we help kids inculcate the must needed skills from their early age of development.
When kids are in their growing age, they mold better and learn things quickly. There are plenty of skills that one can cultivate by practicing STEM learning. These include problem-solving, critical thinking, creativity, curiosity, decision making, leadership, acceptance of failure, and more. It’s wiser to help them cultivate these skills from an early age instead of having them go under pressure of being an “all-rounder” in their mid-growth years.
To facilitate this important part of learning, a game-based approach is the best fit for an early age. It keeps kids engaged and happy while they learn. Apart from digital game-based learning, there are STEM learning toys available. With these toys, you not only get to keep a check on the screen time of the child but also expose them to physical aspects of game based learning.
Enlisted are some amazing STEM Learning toys that will come in handy for all parents out there!
This is a construction kit that can help kids with their STEM learning. It enables the child to create 2D or 3D figures using pipes and connectors. The kit comes with 150 straw pieces in 8 colours, 8 building rings, and 120 connector pieces. This huge kit can be enjoyed by the kid or a family activity can be done. This set claims to promotes cognitive development, fine motor skills, spatial awareness, creativity, and understanding of the third dimension. The good thing about the kit is that the models created can be dismantled to re-create. This means the child can take time to imagine and create and recreate as desired.
Age Appropriate: Made for 5 plus and up
This 160pcs building blocks come with lots of shapes like spheres, wheels, square panels, rectangle panels, triangle panels, equilateral triangle panels, connecting rods, and more. With these vivid blocks, children can easily build any shape, figure, object, or just anything. The only limit is the imagination. The kit is ideal for enhancing fine motor skills, improving hand-eye coordination and problem-solving abilities. This one kit is perfect to keep toddlers out of TV and electronics. Also, they claim that the kit is made of Non-toxic highest quality ABS material, rigorously and independently so it’s safe to handover to your toddlers!
Age Appropriate: Made for 3 plus and up to 10
3. Smartivity Eye Spy Periscope STEM Educational DIY Learning Toy kit
This kit will be loved by your kid especially if they enjoy learning about the science behind how things work. This kit contains all the elements needed to assemble a fully-functional Periscope. Your child will have great fun assembling it and playing with it. Let your child explore how a submarine sense objects above water despite being deep under it? How can you look through walls? while working on this cool kit.
Age Appropriate: Made for 6 plus
Children love to see visuals and images. They are fascinated by how it works. How are they made?
With this toy, they get to know the answers to some of their curious questions like – “How do Shadows get bigger and Smaller” “How the Size, Shape, and Position of Shadow Changes from Sunrise to Sunset?”, “Do all objects form shadows?” and so.
The kit has all the tools and equipment you’d need to create shadows of different Objects and a Screen to capture shadows. Add this up with the fun game of identifying the shape of a given object by looking at its shadow, and you have a wonderfully applicable and hands-on experiment to build a mini-projector!
Age Appropriate – 4 -5 years
Commonly known as the abacus, it is great for brain development at any age. to learn math which is beyond what we see on papers, practice abacus daily. It enhances logical reasoning as children learn to solve math problems on their own. Helps in improving speed and accuracy in solving math problems by using simple methods. Your children will learn to concentrate more because they will constantly visualize an image of an abacus in their heads every time they will solve a math problem.
These are some of the best STEM toys available in India. If I missed some you know of, mention in the comments below.