Educational toys and games

 

 

Neither when I was very young, nor now I'm fairly old, did I ever notice much difference between learning and playing educational games - probably on account of there not being so much difference, period. Sure, learning those countless principal parts of Latin verbs way back in the late nineteen-fifties was not really a game I liked to play five times daily, but... neither was sex during the sixties. After all: simply by overdoing it you can make anything appear like work, can't you? However, both were highly enjoyable games to me: intriguingly educational games to boot. So I reckon it's all a matter of the right measurement then. In the correct dose and carefully applied, everything we learned, learn and will learn, is a form of play. And every toy we use in whatever game we play, makes us learn.

 

Young children know this instinctively. Whatever toy, tool, thing or game is given to them, they always manage to learn while they're playing. I even dare venture saying that for the young child each and every object is an educational toy, and every game an educational game. They simply can't help it, the brats.

 

 

I have a confession to make. Somewhere deep down, near the very bottom of my heart, I'm still a child! When my two daughters grew up, I did always manage to involve myself in their various experiments with tools and structures that "moved" in one way or another.

 

Whether they were marbles rolling down an ingeniously designed curving track, or little windmills that rotated energetically when placed on any central heating radiator... Daddy himself was always the most enthusiastic player with the toy, machine or structure! Luckily my daughters enjoyed my participation, and many is the fondly remembered hour we spent hollering with glee when a marble, cog or crank eventually did what we wanted it to do!

 

At the moment I write this I'm 63, and I can still get disproportionaly excited by a toy steam engine, a gravity powered contraption, or a little Sterling engine that runs on the heat of a simple cup of coffee. Stuff like the Sterling motor animation to the left which, by the way, is published under a Creative Commons "share and share-alike" license by YK_Times, finds in me a dedicated and totally absorbed viewer! The marvels of nature never cease to intrigue me, and when eventually my time comes, I'll probably insist on being carried to the waiting grave propelled by solar power or wind force. The lowering into the final pit works on gravity anyway, so I'll be a happy stiff!

 

 

Although I'm quite an optimist, I'm not a fool either: no use denying that the economy in the Western world isn't exactly at its peak, right now. Sure, it will pass - like all things will pass. But in the meantime we'll have to be careful spending money, looking for the best buys. When it comes to educational games and toys for our children, this doesn't mean going for low quality, but paying a low price.

 

Via eBay online auctions it's often possible to buy the exact same items that you find in retail stores, but for much lower prices. Not only that, but you don't have to go out, fire up the old gas-guzzler, and pay the oil companies for the privilege of driving yourself to the mall. A third advantage of eBay that I appreciate very much, is that often items can be found that aren't obtainable anymore via the "regular" outlets.

 

Doesn't eBay have any disadvantages then? Yes, it has: searching and figuring out what's being offered when, where and for how much, can be one heck of a job. That's were "Educational Toys and Games" comes in: our site continuously crawls eBay for the best deals in educational material, arranging the results for you in a clear and systematic way. Kind of like: we did the work, you get the fun!