How to Select Toys for Three to Five Year Kids?

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Be aware of that they are offered as a guide to help in your selection, but remember that all children are different. Study your child and get to know his or her interests, abilities and limitations. Not all children enjoy the same kinds of play: one child will be interested in building with blocks or doing puzzles; another may prefer riding bikes or playing ball; your child may enjoy pretending with a dollhouse or playing board games. Try to match the toy to your child and keep in mind that his or her interest in a toy will often carry through more than one age group.


Pre-Schoolers: Three to Five Years

Pre-schoolers are masters of make-believe. They like to act out grown-up roles and create imaginary situations. Costumes and equipment that help them in their pretend worlds are important at this stage. Some of the many possibilities include pretend money, play food, a toy cash register or telephone, a make-believe village, fort, circus, farm, gas station or restaurant, a puppet theater and play with dolls and doll furniture.


In a child's private world, a favorite toy is both a companion and protector. Dolls and teddy bears, for example, have helped countless children to cope with difficult moments. Children will sometimes express their feelings to toy "confidants" and share emotions with them that they might otherwise keep to themselves.


Transportation is fascinating to young children. Trucks, cars, planes, trains, boats and tractors are all fun at this age and beyond. Larger outdoor toys, including gym equipment, wheeled vehicles and a first two-wheeled bicycle with helmet and training wheels, are appropriate now.


Visualization and memory skills can be sharpened by play that requires use of imagination or mental computation, with the introduction of board games, electronic toys and word and matching games geared specifically for this group. Construction sets, books and tapes, coloring sets, pains, crayons, puzzles, stuffed toys and dolls continue to be favorites.



[Source: U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission
and the The American Toy Institute]