Why not make your own toys?
Designing your own toys is a great way to integrate imagination and analytical thinking
Toys should foster open-ended imagination and be the means for collaborating with friends and family, says Launchpad Toys’ Andy Russell.
Design thinking is part of education today because it provides children with a motivating, engaging learning experience. This approach allows individual styles and approaches to learning to develop naturally. Any subject may be taught by using a design approach and it is increasingly used to tackle complex problem in areas such as health care, education, global poverty, and government.
This approach can be modelled to young children. It is a fun way to spend some quality time together. So start to Think Dive into ideas about making a little toy.
The overall aim is often to develop ideas with a specific purpose and function. Yet a toy can also be designed to invite someone to play with it. It does not have to be played with in a specific way. An ambiguous looking toy can turn into whatever you want it to be. So an open mind to what the new toy should look like or do is an important part of the design process. . . Go here to read about a toy maker who has become very successful when he used this approach to designing toys.
Wooden cubes can be turned into Design or Art Dices. Random pictures and signs inspire creative thinking. Every time you flip the dice, an opportunity to explore colours and shapes emerges. Combining several dices makes it more challenging.This dice was found a Tinkerlab where you find lots of great ideas for using dices.
You can involve in child in making the pictures for the dice.
Think about different shapes, patterns, and colours.
You can even turn the dice into an artwork in itself. Found this stunning dice at Mommy Labs. Making a large dice with wonderful patterns and different material will really help to spark the imagination when it comes to designing a new toy.
Find a cardboard box, toilet paper rolls, a magic marker, scissors, and one roll of tape. . .
Decide how many times you want to roll the dice – a couple of times might be enough. Draw what you see after the dice roll. Then start to work on transforming the material into a toy.
The skill to see things not for what they are but for what they could be transformed into is useful in lots of situations. So make family playtime into a creative collaboration. Good design thinking requires communication and listening to others.But most importantly, it is something that can engage the whole family in a creative experience far richer than a trip to the toy store.
Toys inspire a child to create their own stories, songs, inventions, worlds. Go here to look at a board on Pinterest dedicated to ideas for toilet paper rolls. Finally an inspirational video about a nine-year-old boy and cardboard boxes.
Photo Daschund and Zebra
