October 24th, 2008 What type of play do you encourage? Posted by Melitsa in Articles, Good reads, Thought of the week

Convergent or divergent toys? Which do you regularly choose for your tot?

And what are all those expensive educational toys like on the market today? Most are convergent in nature; they usually look for a single, correct answer to a problem because they are busy teaching skills. Yet the research…suggests that [one] group was not only more creative in their problem solving but showed more perseverance and enthusiasm. These are the the behaviours and attitudes toward problem solving we want to cultivate in our children, not a a penchant for looking for the one right answer. They’ll get enough of that at school. We want our children to know how to find the right answer when there is one, but we also want them to be able to think outside the box. Where does creativity come from? From play- good old unmonitored, unstructured free and open play.

Source: Einstein Never Used Flashcards: How Our Children Really Learn–and Why They Need to Play More and Memorize Less
Kathy Hirsh Pasek Ph.d & Roberta Michnick Golinkoff Ph.d pg. 224

You’ll need to read Einstein Never Used Flashcards: How Our Children Really Learn–and Why They Need to Play More and Memorize Less to find out more about the differences and compelling research evidence about convergent and divergent toys.

Let me know what you think…

What type of play do you encourage?

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