Running Head: PIAGET’S TOY PROJECT 1 PIAGET’s TOY STORY Introduction Typically, children cannot handle specific activities up to the point that they are mentally mature to achieve this. According to Piaget’s cognitive developmental theory, cognitive development is a progressive rearrangement of cognitive processes emanating from environmental experience as well as biological maturation (Lourenco, 2016). Interaction helps children develop their psychological framework for socializing and comprehending their personal environment. Children do this through using schemas. Just as a young child is given birth to with some inherent schemas like sucking, schemas keep on developing as well as improve in ability into adult life so that they can function well in the new world (McLeod, 2018). Even though this process occurs naturally, there are materials such as toys or games that can be used to meet the needs identified by Piaget in the four developmental stages. The sensorimotor stage begins from birth all through to around two years. Children during this stage learn about the world through the manipulation of objects and relying on their senses. During this stage, infants create knowledge as well as an understanding of the world through an experience like hearing and vision. Children interact physically with materials by touching, sucking and grabbing among others (Lourenco, 2016). They are not in a position to predict any reactions. Thus, the children experiment and learn via trial and error. Children also learn about the use of reflexes and motor activity without the use of symbols. Similarly, when children turn two years old, they develop language. Since the particular child’s cognition is limited to, motor movements and sensations at around eight months, a child starts to comprehend PIAGET’S TOY PROJECT 2 object permanence. This means that objects occur separately despite being observed. For a child to achieve object permanence, they require the capacity to grasp simple psychological object symbols. Object permanence occurs when a child is snatched an object they were playing with and goes ahead to look for it (McLeod, 2018). It occurs between 7 to 9 months to demonstrate that memory is actually developing. Fisher Price Musical Tether Ting is a toy that can be used to help infants achieve their development needs. The toy is characterized with debatable surfaces, fun sounds as well as very bright colors. The child is supposed to press the keys which have debatable surfaced. There are three buttons, and every one of them produces a different song and sound effect. To allow the baby to play with the keys easily, there is a link on the toy which ensures this happens. The toy is relevant to this stage as it allows the child to grab and touch. Besides, the toy’s texture is great for the child more so when teething. The infant also learns as he or she grows and improves their cognition. The toy has several shapes as well as colors, and this is of great educational importance for the infant. Rubber duck is made of rubber, hence easy to squeeze in the hands. My parents let me play with a rubber duck when growing up. My rubber duck was bright yellow in color with pink lips and spots all through its body. When I squeezed the duck, it would squeak. The duck also had a soft surface, hence I could place it in my mouth more often when playing with it. I learned how to grab and such and touch from holding the rubber duck. I often played with the duck in my bed. My mother could hide it, then make me look for it. Through this, I achieved object permanence. When I squeezed the duck, and it produced some sounds, I could shout along. Hence, I developed a language through playing with the duck. PIAGET’S TOY PROJECT 3 Preoperational stage starts from 2 years to 7 years. Children all through this stage develop imagination and memory. Similarly, the children understand things symbolically as well as both past and future ideas. Children use images, symbols and are able to recognize that a single factor can represent another. Sadly, there are some cognitive tasks that the children cannot do such as egocentrism, animism, and centration. Animism is the thought that insensate objects display emotions (McLeod, 2018). Centration, on the other hand, is where children can handle single factors at specific times. Egocentrism is lack of capacity for a child to adopt alternative thoughts (McLeod, 2018). A child basically believes one sees and know what they know. The child does not see other people’s point of view. For example, if one has a two-sided picture and asks the child what he/she sees, they will say. If one asks the child what the individual sees, the child is going to expect that the individual sees what he/she sees. Children have the ability to classify things based on single characteristics such as color with color or shapes with shapes. Mega Blob Barbie FAA Marina is a product which involves two main characters Ken and Barbie engaging in adventures. These characters either enjoy the cool breeze or jump on jet skis for adventure. The child, thus builds Barbie a marina to enjoy the summer on the water with Ken or alone. There is a prestigious observational deck where the characters sit as they enjoy a good time. Other features of the toy apart from the jet skis and two-story marina are accessories such as store rack, ice cream freezer, patio tables, barbecue, glasses, flowers and lounge chair. In addition, there are block pieces such as building blocks with the theme of Barbie. There is ice cream freezer door as well as awnings, Ken and Barbie different fashions. These Barbie sets are used to build a great world of friends, fashion and fun. This is a toy that can help children develop their imagination and memory. This toy is relevant to this development stage as it gives PIAGET’S TOY PROJECT 4 the child a chance to make use of their imagination to build anything that they want. There are different sections of the toy, and a child's imagination can be improved with this toy. The playdough collection set contains two cutters and six play-doh cans of different colors. This set helps provoke the imagination. The cans just contain the bolus of doh, which is emptied from the cans in readiness for children’s play. I also played with playdoh and learnt how to change the shapes of objects while maintaining a static mass, thus providing me an opportunity to shift towards the comprehension of conservation. This helped me achieve conservation. I could use a ball of playdoh to make different shapes and lengths of objects. I used playdough to develop fine motor skills such as squeezing, squishing, pushing and pinching as from the ball of playdough I made different shapes and sizes of dough. My focus was on exploration as well as manipulation of the dough for fun. I could also make other features from the dough such as people, animals or flowers among others. I also achieved centration where I only focused on making longer shapes while avoiding the widths. I became very creative as I built things solely from my imagination. The concrete operational stage begins from ages 7 to 11 years. During this particular stage, children are highly conscious of their external situations and other people’s feelings. Children are partly egocentric and start to apprehend that not every person shares their beliefs, thoughts, and feelings (Ghazi & Ullah, 2015). This stage is thus characterized by the onset of reasoning and logic. Children acquire class inclusion which involves being aware of the classification of objects and categories. A child has the ability to recognize differences between sub and general categories. Children at this stage understand relations even though they are not capable of formal logic. The child also develops conservation, which means the ability to logically predict a specific quantity will be available the same as it was initially irrespective of PIAGET’S TOY PROJECT 5 adjustments. Similarly, the children understand reversibility. Reversibility is the capacity to undo a particular operation physically or mentally. Learn and Climb Deluxe play money set is relevant for kids at this developmental stage. This toy entails 300 paper bills as well as 260 realistic, high-quality plastic coins. This toy is important for teaching kids to not only sort, but also count money. It does not only help with money math games, but also relevant for use with children’s cash register. Other features of the toy include a whole set of money learning. The accessories include coins and credit cards relevant for pretend store and play, bulky wallet with pockets for the children’s play money, and a pretend checkbook as well as credit card. Also, there is a bulky wooden storage box which has several compartments complete with a sleek lid which is wooden. The lid helps keep the money used in the play organized and neat. Every compartment is clearly marked with matching denomination for simple cleanup and fun. This toy gives children the ability to perform activities that are imaginative and also think logically. Through this play, the children gain conservation concept. The child can play math activities such as adding the number of dollar bills or subtracting. Similarly, the play can be used to create imaginations such as determining who has more money between two players or even three players taking part in the game. The Jigsaw puzzle is a toy with a board consisting of movable counters with inscriptions of sightings. I used jigsaw puzzle during this stage of development to learn how to sort objects, classify sets of objects as well as develops comprehension that there are things that can be changed and later put back in the way they were thus achieving conservation. The game helped improve my logic skills as I could understand how to sort objects as well as put things back to where they were with limited difficulty. I could move the puzzles from one position to the other PIAGET’S TOY PROJECT 6 so as to make the puzzle fit and create the right picture of the sights. I developed reversibility as I could undo the puzzle physically and redo it again. Formal operation begins from age 11 and older. Children during this stage can use logic to address problems, view the world around them as well as plan for the future. Hypothetical thinking is another cognitive ability that is developed at this stage (McLeod, 2018). Abstract thinking also occurs at this stage. Children can draw their own conclusions from various occurrences as well as apply information as they have grasped it. They can easily develop plans to address problems. Leap frog leap pad, two explorer learning kid tablet is $229.50 at Amazon. This toy features a broad curriculum involving mathematics, reading, geography, science, language, music and health. There is an art studio, pet pad, cartoon creativity, and leapfrog learning songs. This toy helps children to not only imagine but also explore. There is a control button on the pad’s screen that the child switches on. The child clicks on the screen on the particular icon that they need to access. This play also helps the child’s boost thinking skills. Snake and ladders game involves a printed board, dice and counters. This game is played between several players where every player puts their counter on the starting point stated start here. Players take turns in rolling the dice and moving their counter depending on the number of spaces on the dice. During this stage of development, I played with my parents and siblings the game of snakes and ladders. Snakes and ladders is a game played by a group of people to help deter a child from isolation. Through this game, I developed a greater sense of self-esteem. This game helped me apply my math skills as well as learn how to predict situations. I knew that if I rolled the dice in a certain way, I could move up the ladder or get eaten by the snakes. Over time, I perfected my skills and knew the decisions to make in particular situations. PIAGET’S TOY PROJECT 7 Conclusion In conclusion, toys and games have a significant influence on cognitive development. Different activities and toys are used for different stages of development. Usually, not all toys on the market are labeled for the right age group. Hence, one may find themselves buying a child a toy that exposes them to danger or is rather too complex to use. Moreover, cognitive development follows a sequence of stages at a single time and that every stage is marked by complex understandings of the world as new intellectual capacities. Through the content of the essay and personal experience, it is clear that every toy can improve or even damage every stage for children. Toys for the sensorimotor stage were very easy to find. This was the same for the formal operational stage. Even so, toys such as jigsaw puzzles, snake and ladders, Fisher Price Musical Tether Ting among others helped meet children’s developmental needs as outlined in the essay. That said, Piaget’s cognitive development theory helps to understand the process of cognitive development.