We all need some ideas and suggestions for what our children may need for their play life. Here is a start.

Haven't we all heard the saying, "Play is the work of young children." As a parent, we need to honor this and provide the right "tools" for play so that children can gain the maximum benefit from play time. Kindergartners are capable of sustaining their play for long periods of time if provided with a variety of play "tools." To understand what your kindergartner is learning through play, we've categorized the toys into the areas of growth they apply to most. However, most toys usually work on a variety of skills at one time. Many of the following toys were also included in the list of suggestions for preschoolers, but children this age will continue to use them. Add a few different pieces as you find them to keep their interest levels up.

Social and emotional

• Dress Up clothes: These encourage children to learn about how the real world works by imitating the roles people take in real life. Kindergartners will enjoy pretending to be a doctor, a nurse, a teacher, a construction worker, and....Provide a variety of choices and see what your child comes up with.
• Dolls and accessories: Playing with dolls allows children to play at being a parent or teacher. Click the images below to explore some of our favorites.

• Small Animals and People: Children this age love to create quite complicated "micro worlds" in which they control what happens and how it happens. They learn about the world by creating these. It's also handy to have pieces of material in solid colors such as blue and green, so they can create "water" and "grass" in these worlds.
• Imaginary Play Items: Kitchen utensils, an oven, a fridge, wooden or plastic play food, child-sized chair and table. All of these are important as they allow the child to role play home life situations.

Fine motor

Puzzles: You can now  introduce quite complicated ones. Experiment and see which ones your kindergartner prefers. Include some puzzles with numbers and letters. They can use them in the puzzle as well a on a flat surface to count with the numbers or make up words from the letters as they begin to gain these skills. Click on the images to see puzzles suitable for this age group.

Other suggestions:

• Scissors
• Stringing beads
• Paints
• Blocks
• Play dough
• Pencils
• Crayons
• Clay
• Glue
• Colored paper

Gross motor

• Scooters and bikes (training wheels will probably be  needed at first)
• Tunnels
• Swings
• Jump ropes
• Balls
• Slide
• Trampoline (Find one with a net that goes all the way around for safety purposes.)

Intellectual

• Simple Board Games: These teach the value of taking turns and problem solving skills. They can also teach numbers, colors, and classification among other things.
• Books: Select ones that depict real life situations as well as imaginative ones. Children this age will also enjoy listening to short chapter books.
• Music, music, and more music: Once again expose your children to lots of different types.
• Puppets: To keep developing those all important language skills keep a selection of puppets. Children can use more complicated ones and can benefit from ones that they can tell stories with such as "little red riding hood."
• Blocks: These help your child to develop increasingly complicated concepts such as patterning, symmetry, spatial awareness and problem solving.

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