Educational Toys from Gigamic (France)

I came across some interesting toys in Singapore Bookfest held by Popular bookstore. The games are all mind-teasing and made of good quality wood. We spent some time understanding the rules and trying out some of the games.

According to the salesperson, the company is called Gigamic. The games originated from France and won many awards. The distributor in Singapore is Avolution Pte Ltd (http://www.familydiy.com), with online stores and retail stores listed on the website; but the products are also being sold at some of the bigger Popular bookstores in Singapore.

Here are some interesting games we saw:

• Quoridor Kid. On a game board with 7x7 squares, to be played by 2-4 players, each assigned a mouse and a piece of cheese. The cheese is static and the aim of the game is for the mouse to eat the opponent’s cheese by moving the mouse one step at a time. The interesting part is that a 2-block width fence can be placed in between the squares to block your opponent’s move. This is a kid's version, simplified from the original Quoridor classic version which uses a 9x9 squares game board and the aim is to reach any of the 9 squares on the opponent’s baseline.
  

• Quarto. On a 4x4 game board, for 2 players with 16 game pieces of different attributes – black/white, short/tall, round/square, solid/hollow. Each player takes turn to put down a piece given by the opponent on the game board and the aim is to line up 4 pieces of the same attribute in a horizontal, vertical or diagonal row. It is not easy as you need to look at all 4 dimensions.

• Cathedral. The concept is very similar to Japanese boardgame Go, where 2 players take turn to put down a piece and capture the space surrounded by its own pieces. The pieces are of different sizes and imitate famous buildings of the world like the Pyramid, the Eiffel Towel and the Statue of Liberty, which makes it attractive.

• Katamino. A puzzle for single player, the aim is to fit in blocks of different shapes into an allocated rectangular space. It is quite common and I have seen a few other games with similar features, including one published by Popular bookstore.

In the end, we did not buy any as we already had a library of games at home and each game above cost at least SGD50. It is also a way to teach our children that we will not buy everything that we like.

Jigsaw Puzzles from Young

I enjoy playing jigsaw puzzles. So do my children, especially my eldest son who started to show great interest from young. Playing jigsaw puzzles can help to develop hand-eyes coordination skills for young children and train their concentration skills. This will prevent them from being too active and running around all the time. :)

When my son was 18 months old, we found the following wooden jigsaw puzzles in the US. They look interesting so we bought them for him. You can probably get these in major stores (WalMart, Toys'R'Us, Jusco). One famous brand of wooden puzzles I know of is Melissa & Doug.


It turned out to be a great toy and trains him the basics of playing jigsaw puzzles. Although the puzzle may look very easy to the adults, in the beginning it was very tough for him. First, he learnt to hold the pieces using the red "handle" / "knob" attached to each piece. Then, he must stabilize the piece, rotate it as needed to fit the piece into the "hole" - and of course he needed to recognize which "hole" the piece should go to. Every piece put in was a great effort and we always cheered and praised him whenever he succeeded, encouraged him when he was almost there. What I realized from this activity is that, in order to train your child to have patience, first, you must have the patience to train him/her. It requires a lot of patience from the parents to sit down with the child and guide him/her to solve the puzzle. Adults tend to want to help the children when we see that they are unable to do it, but it's important to let them try out and experience the failure. Of course, at times, we may need to guide them, especially in the beginning, perhaps by holding their hands to put in the pieces. Children (in fact, even adults) love to be praised. So keep giving them positive words to encourage them.

I cannot remember exactly how long it took him to master the skills to complete the puzzle, probably after a few months, but I remember how joyful and proud we felt when he mastered the skills. And he felt a great sense of accomplishment.

The next step is completing the "cardboard" jigsaw puzzles, which is the same material as the common jigsaw puzzles that we play with. Start with puzzles of big pieces with "frame", like below, which we also bought from the US. Increase the number of pieces from 4 pieces to 6 pieces, 10, 25, and decrease the size of the pieces. Eventually, as the child "graduates" from these "junior puzzles", s/he will be able to play with the conventional jigsaw puzzles.



It is very important to keep the interest of the child. After some time and some trials, a child may lose interest as it is beyond his/her capability to solve the puzzle. If you fail to keep the interest by praising, encouraging, guiding and demonstrating, just put the puzzle aside and do not force the child to continue. I remember my girl had very little patience when I first introduced her to the first wooden puzzles. I tried again after a few weeks but she gave up after a short while. This was repeated for a few times. It took her longer than her elder brother, but eventually she was also able to solve the puzzle.

Another tip to attract the children is to use their favorite characters like Thomas the Tank Engine, Mickey Mouse and Winnie the Pooh. It worked with both my children. Something special like a puzzle that glows in the dark can also attract them. :)


Below shows another variation which I find very interesting. The 2 bears each consists of 3 pieces - head, upper body and lower body which can be changed. My girl enjoyed changing the clothes for the bears and she also learnt to match the top and bottom clothing by color and pattern.


Quite a number of people commented that my children are ahead of their peers in solving jigaw puzzles. This is due to exposure and practice. I believe that most other children, given the same opportunity, would be able to achieve the same thing as well. Practice makes perfect!

Thomas the Tank Engine! (Thomas and Friends)

Thomas the Tank Engine is my son's favourite toy. It started with his aunt giving him a VCD as a present. The show seems boring to us, but he was watching it with great interest. We seldom bought him "non-value-added" (non-educative) toys, but on his 2-year-old birthday, we bought a basic set of Thomas train under the TOMY series for him as a present.

He was very excited and together we built the train tracks. He pushed the Thomas train over the tracks and we said "Peep! Peep!". From his happy face we knew instantly that the purchase was worth it. From then onwards, we started buying Thomas "goods" for him.


As he is interested in anything related to Thomas, it is actually easy for us to motivate him on certain activities. For example, buying Thomas books encourages him to read - in fact, he was potty-trained by reading Thomas books! We bought him Thomas jigsaw puzzles to train him to focus and develop his patience. As a result, at the age of 4 plus, he was already solving 100-pieces of jigsaw puzzles at ease. Nevertheless, he showed less interest to play the non-Thomas jigsaw puzzles. :) When we want to reward him behaving well, we also use Thomas goods as a gift to encourage him. Throughout the years, other than the VCDs, train sets and story books, he has had birthday cake, stickers, bag, towel, stationary, clothings, all with "Thomas"! Luckily in Singapore, there are quite some choices on affordable Thomas goods.

Later we learnt that actually Thomas is a very "value-added" (educative) toys.

• It helps to develop motor skills (putting the tracks together and pushing the train).
  
• By watching the VCD and reading the books, he improved his English language.
• It encourages imagination. My son always murmured to himself when pushing the train, and repeating what he heard in the TV programs.
• It encourages creativity through designing of the tracks. Over the years, my son learnt to do it all by himself and now at 6 years old, he is already an expert in designing the tracks including bridges.

As he loves this toy very much, we also taught him to take good care of the toys and always clean up and put them back after playing. His sister, being influenced by him, is also a big fan of Thomas. When she was a few months old, she started watching her brother play Thomas. One of her first words was "Percy" (one of Thomas' friends) and before she reached the age of 2, she had already recognized all the major characters in Thomas and Friends (Thomas, Percy, James, Gordon, Henry). Although she is a girl, I don't mind at all that she plays trains or cars. To me, it's much better than Barbie dolls.

Children learn most effectively through play. Both my children have certainly benefited from being fans of Thomas. I also fulfilled my childhood dream to own an electric train :). Actually, it's really fun to build tracks and play the train sets, even for adults.

Good TV/DVD Programs for Young Children

Nowadays, TV has become part of our live and there is hardly any families without this black box at home. There is a countless number of TV programs available for children and it's good to be careful and selective on the shows. Good shows can help to supplement our teaching and reinforce the good values. Avoiding long hours of watching TV is also necessary to prevent the strain and deterioration of the eyesight. I typically set the limit to about 30 minutes as I hope that my children (unlike me) will not need glasses, and definitely, not from a young age!

Some programs my children love to watch are:

• Barney - a purple dinosaur from imagination who is a playmate cum teacher. The show is very musical and instills good values like good manners, cleanliness and loving each other. It is typically more popular among girls and children can start watching from age 1. My girl loves Barney a lot! Highly recommended.


• Elmo from the Sesame Streets is a little red puppet who talks in a funny way. Together with other characters like Ernie and Cookie Monster, it is able to attract little children from age 1. Amazingly, before you realize, your kids will have already mastered the ABCs and 123s!


• Thomas and Friends - Thomas the tank engine is one of the most popular characters among boys! Adults may find the TV program quite monotonous but somehow the kids enjoy it. Besides, the standard of English used is quite high especially in terms of vocabulary. My boy is a big fan of Thomas (and my girl as well!). He owns quite a number of Thomas goods including the TOMY series of train playset, books and jigsaw puzzles.


• Bob the Builder exposes the children to the world of constructions (building/fixing houses and roads). His crew members include Scoop the digger, Dizzy the cement mixer, Lofty the crane, Roley the steam roller and many others. My kids start enjoying this show from about age 2.


• Little Einstein is a very good program that my son enjoys watching from about age 4. The 4 characters travel on a rocket that brings the kids to places around the world to accomplish a mission. The children learn about famous spots, cities and countries around the world, musical instruments, famous artists/composers and their works, and basic skills of reading music scores. Highly recommended.


• Dora the Explorer - a bilingual (English and Spanish) adventurous girl who solves problem together with the children along her journey. It often touches on protecting wild animals.

There are other types of programs which is more educational to stimulate the infants' brains or teach the children how to read etc., that I will share in another article in the future.

Just a side note, as my personal preference, I refrain my kids from watching programs that show violence like fighting and shooting (for example, Ben 10 and Power Rangers). I also dislike characters like Barbie doll that introduces materialism to the kids.