Skills Guide

Learn more about the skills our toys are designed to develop!

Cognitive

Speech & Language

Creativity & Imagination

Fine & Gross Motor

STEM

Cognitive

Speech & Language

Social & Emotional

Creativity & Imagination

Fine & Gross Motor

STEM

Cognitive

Our toys for cognitive development are great for growing infants, toddlers, and kiddos! Fun and colorful, these cognitive toys can help children develop sensory recognition, memory, problem solving, and attention skills while having a blast.

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We may not notice it, but our brains work hard to acquire, store, transform, and use knowledge all the time—this is called cognition [1,2]. We use cognitive skills in all our daily activities, like reading a book or tying our shoes! For kids to master these activities, they must first develop core cognitive skills and learn to use them together with other skills.

Let’s take a look at some core cognitive skills.

Sensory Recognition

Kids are constantly absorbing information and learning about the world through their 5 senses: sight hearing, touch, taste, and smell. Sensory recognition is the process of connecting this information with what they already know [1]. For example, when your kiddo sees an apple, they’ll recognize it if they already have an image of an apple in their head!

Memory

When we receive information from our senses, we store it in one of two places:

1. Working memory: where new information is kept temporarily
2. Long-term memory: where information frequently exposed to us is stored

And once information makes its way into our long-term memory, it’s sorted into two categories:

1. Implicit memory: when we retrieve information subconsciously, like when we brush our teeth
2. Explicit memory: when we retrieve information consciously, like when we learn the alphabet

Problem Solving

We use our knowledge to solve problems and make decisions! There are two different ways we think to problem-solve:

1. Critically: when we recall stored information and previous experiences to find the best solution to a problem [1]
2. Creatively: going one step further and taking existing knowledge to use it in brand-new ways

To use these problem-solving skills, we first need to know enough about the problem at hand. For example, kids need to first become familiar with their own range of emotions and how to express them, before learning to identify others’ emotions, which is essential to developing empathy.

Attention

When we pay attention to something, we determine which stimuli to focus on in our surroundings [1]. Attention skills help us filter out irrelevant information and to look closely at what we’re focusing on. Kids need these skills to spot subtle differences between letters, such as ‘i’ and ‘l’!

In Conclusion…

Core skills, like reading and writing, require little ones to combine cognitive skills with other skills. For example, in order to read, kids need to use their sensory skills to recognize each letter in the alphabet, then apply their memory and attention skills to tell the difference between similar-looking ones. Cognitive skills are an important ingredient in the recipe of development!

Our Collection of Cognitive Toys

ABC Railway

Alphabet Learning Train Set

Alphabet Fishing

Magnetic Alphabet Fishing Game

Bright Explorer

Educational Light Box Playset

Dive & Discover

Ocean Learning Color Changing Book Set

Hot

EggXpress Yourself!

Match & Learn Eggs

I Can Plan!

Magnetic Calendar

Knock-Knock Who’s Inside?

Lock & Latch Board

Lace-Up & Learn Animals

Fine Motor Wooden Lacing Toy

Learning Ladybug

Ladybug Counting Toy

Hot

Locbloc Counting Blocks

Educational Building Block Set

Mini Barista

Wooden Barista Playset

References:

[1] Farmer, T. A., & Matlin, M. W. (2019). Cognition. John Wiley & Sons.
[2] Bayne, T., Brainard, D., Byrne, R. W., Chittka, L., Clayton, N., Heyes, C., Mather, J., Ölveczky, B., Shadlen, M., Suddendorf, T. and Webb, B. (2019). What is cognition?. Current Biology, 29(13), R608-R615.

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