Background and Toy description
In as much as children toys primarily serve the purpose of fun and keeping the children engaged, they also teach the children critical skills in various stages of development. One such toys is the Tiger Ringaling.
The toy is suitable for children between the ages of 0-24 months. It comprises soft fabrics that come in vibrant colours, but with a variety of animal design to choose from as can be seen in the picture above. When a child holds and squeezes the toy, it crinkles. The three rings jingle to make noises according to how the child holds the toy and how hard they fiddle with it. Tiger Ringaling is designed in such a way that it perfectly fits the small hands of a child and would not irritate the child by falling off their hands easily. Since children are used to chewing on their toys, the softer fabrics sooth the gums and prevent probably injury to the emerging teeth. On the same note, there is a chewable teething piece on the toy. In general, the toy promotes grasping, chewing, and sound recognition skills among several others. The vibrancy in the colours make it easier for children to identify the toy and also take not of the difference in the colours.
Relation to child development themes in the course
According to Week 7 Lecture Notes Slide 8, practice is of paramount importance in the development of motor skills. Playing with such toys as the Tiger Ringaling amounts to practice which involves practising how to identify sounds, colours, textures, and overall cognitive and motor skills. In general, motor skills comprise actions where the baby has to use their muscles. Relatively, gross and fine motor skills entail larger movements and smaller movement actions respectively. Tiger Ringaling promotes all the types of motor and cognitive skills. Such elements as the jingles, crinkles, and the rings stimulates the baby’s touch and the noise produced makes child enjoy shaking the toy thus promoting movement. Further, the rattle promotes larger movements or gross motor skills as well as strengthening the baby’s muscular coordination. With respect to sensory stimulation, the elements also work to stimulate the baby’s senses of vision, touch, and hearing.
These skills combine to promote a child’s classification ability later in the middle childhood. Week 7 Slide 12 notes that “children develop the ability to classify objects according to multiple criteria” during their middle childhood. However, this has to be preceded by exposure to such helpful objects as the Tiger Ringaling toy during their early childhood. To some extent, classification, among other skills, depend on eye-tracking skills which children can learn through a variety of vibrant colours in the toy as well as the different parts. The toy also has an impact on the memory of a child, and the eventual intelligence. As the child takes note of the different colours and sounds produced when the toy jingles and crinkles, their memory expands and they may even prefer particular sounds or colours. This contributes to memory changes in the child and builds a strong memory foundation for their subsequent developmental stages. However, while the toy relates to, and promotes most of the skills discussed in this course, it does not help much with language development. In particular, the toy does not promote a child’s language skills. However, by helping the child differentiating colours is more of math and cognitive skills than of literacy. Regardless, the toy greatly relates to several development themes discussed in the course.