Selecting Educational Toys by Age Group

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You know your child better than we do, so it can be a little tricky for us to recommend super-specific toys by age group. When you see the age group listed on a toy package, it's always more of a general suggestion than a specific limitation. Some kids may excel when it comes to mathematics and motor skills, preferring complex building toys at a young age, while staying at about the same pace as everyone else when it comes to reading and writing. Others may already be into chapter books, but not quite ready for the trickier Lego kits.

The toy age groups are a good enough guide to select toys for say, a niece or nephew, if you're not really sure where they're at developmentally, but for parents, they're more of a loose guideline. So with that in mind, we hope the following will help you to understand what those age-group ratings really mean...

For starters, though, 0-12 months and 1-2 years really should be strictly followed for the most part. For infants, there are only so many toys that are actually completely safe for the child in the first place. Your baby may be a genius, but if you think your little Einstein is ready for Play-Doh, you'd better be ready to change some rainbow coloured diapers this week.

For the 3-4 age range, toys are generally a lot simpler for the most part than the one's they'll be interested in in the next year or two. Children at this age are still grasping the basic motor skills, so let them catch up on all that before you start handing them The Great Gatsby or anything. At this point, it's all about physical development and coordination. Readin', writin', and 'rithmetic come a little later.

From 5-7, it gets a little trickier to nail it down. Some kids are already reading chapter books by the time they're seven years old, while others are just now learning the alphabet. In general though, this is the age range where reading and basic mathematics first really come into play. Any toy with numbered or lettered buttons is a great choice around this time.

Eight and up... it's getting harder and harder to categorize kids by age when it comes to developmental toys. Gauge your own child's level of education, their interests, their curiosities, and provide them with something challenging.

In fact, that's probably the basic idea you should hold in mind when shopping for educational toys. Always be looking for something just a bit more challenging than your kid has already proven able to handle. A kid who loves Duplo blocks might be ready for Lego and Mega Bloks. A kid who likes children's books might be ready or his first chapter book. You always want to be offering some degree of challenge, because that's where learning really comes from. If there's no challenge, it's boring, and it won't hold the child's interest long enough for them to learn anything from it (not that it has anything new to teach them anyways).

One thing worth noting, those Leapfrog activity books. They're recommended for ages 3-4 and 5-7. Three is too young for most kids to start reading, but the books also provide full colour illustrations and they're electronically interactive toys, so they really offer a lot for all ages. You might even catch yourself playing with it sometime.

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Selecting the Right Friends For Success - It's a Matter of Physics

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Regardless of how great you think you are, both the historical record and the basic laws of physics teach us that there is a limit as to what you can accomplish solely by yourself. If you are going to achieve great and significant things, you will at critical points need the motivational, physical and intellectual assistance of others.

The importance of friends was perhaps best stated over 2000 years ago by one of those anonymous wise men whose name has been lost to history: "Friends are God's way of taking care of us."

The people around whom you spend the bulk of your time will either be a benefit and enhancement to your life or they will be draining and retarding influences. Therefore, if you are sincerely looking to achieve great things in life, friendships, relationships and associations should not be left to chance. You have a personal responsibility to form mutually beneficial relations in order to better your life and achieve your individual greatness.

The secrets for finding and forming those relationships can be found in the basic laws of physics. Read them; act on them and succeed!

#1 - The First Law of Motion - We are indebted to the great physicist Sir Isaac Newton for this law. It is also known as the Law of Inertia because it basically states that an object will remain motionless or will keep moving in the same direction at the same speed (basically forever) unless acted upon by another force.

For our purposes here, this law basically states that you are not going to move forward or move forward at a faster pace unless you bring the right people (forces) into your life. In other words, you cannot do it all by yourself. By yourself, the best you can hope for is to move in a certain direction at a certain speed. If you what to change that direction or increase that speed, you must bring greater forces into your life. This includes greater knowledge and greater individual effort. But it also includes better and more beneficial friends.

#2 - The Law of Association - Other than the parents who raised you and instilled your core personality, the people who will have the greatest impact (positively and negatively) on your life are the people with whom you associate most frequently.

If you are not receiving maximum benefit from your current friends, then you need to begin associating with more uplifting and beneficial people. Go where beneficial people go: Their social clubs, their seminars, their meetings, their parties, their churches, etc. Identify the types of people which can be most beneficial to you and begin to associate with them directly. You can also associate with them indirectly by reading what they read: books, magazines, etc.

#3 - The Law of Radiant Energy - It is a physical law that all people radiate energy. Several years ago two Italian scientists calculated that each adult radiates energy roughly equivalent to that given off by a 75-watt light bulb.

Now, we are stretching things a bit here but we ask the question: What are you radiating? What message or aura do you send to others as you walk, talk and make your way through life? Do you speak with confidence, walk with pride, look good, smell good, etc? Are you someone with which others would want to associate? Remember, your radiant energy or aura attracts others, repels them or is neutral meaning you tend not to be noticed one way or the other.

You must work on and build an aura which attracts the type of people which can be beneficial to your life.

#4 - The Law of Mutual Benefit - If someone is beneficial to you but you are not beneficial to them, then in a long term relationship with that person you will begin to be viewed as a parasite. In order to avoid this situation and the disrespect which tends to result from it, you must make yourself valuable. Others should receive a benefit (intellectual, spiritual, practical, motivational) from associating with you.

Relationships founded upon mutual benefit tend to be the longest lasting and produce the most positive and constructive results. But here again, do not leave things to chance. Make yourself beneficial but also make sure others know about your benefits. You should not be a shameless self-promoter but through your conversations and writings you can make sure others know what you have to offer.

#5 - E=mc squared - We are indebted to the genius Albert Einstein for this law. It states that energy (E) equals mass (m) times the speed of light squared (c squared). This law says a lot but for our purposes here, it says a small amount of mass can produce an enormous amount of energy. Indeed, this law is the theory behind the atomic bomb.

Energy is what enables us to accomplish things. As an individual (mass) you can produce an enormous amount of energy. But suppose for one moment you can multiply that energy production by having two or three like-minded people helping you achieve a goal. Friends increase your energy output and enable you to accomplish things way beyond that which can be achieved by you individually.

Friends are powerful.

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