Why Children Need Open Ended Play
Open ended play is the best way to support your child’s growing brain with creativity, social skills, curiosity, and independence. Offering open ended toys to play with will give your kiddo hours of fun and will build their brains!
What is Open Ended Play
If you’ve ever experienced toy clutter or an excess of toys that each do one thing, you’ll easily understand the concept of open ended play, and its benefits.
Open ended play is an unstructured and self-directed way of playing that lets your child use their imagination, creativity, and language skill building.
Truly, this is how kids have played all throughout history. Recently, toys with one specific intention for play have come onto the scene. A toy that moves independently, makes sounds, and lights up guides your child’s play rather than your child guiding their play with imagination. This type of “closed play” distracts your child from building their developmental skills.
When you think of something super simple like a stick, it can be a wand, sword, part of a fort, or a drumstick. This is a great example of a toy that supports open ended play. On the other hand, a truck that lights up, talks, and is battery-operated won’t encourage the child’s developmental skills or allow for any creative play.
The Benefits of Open Ended Toys
Choosing toys that promote open ended play is the best way to support your child’s development, creativity, and social skills. Open ended toys provide opportunities for unstructured play where the kids lead the way.
Toys that allow creative play will get your child talking, moving, and problem-solving. Stirring a pot with a stick and then turning around to cast a spell with that stick will put them in a world of their own imagination, and all the while, they can communicate with a friend.
Social Emotional Regulation
Imaginative play helps kids develop their social skills, whether playing with peers and siblings or pretending independently. Open ended toys can also be a great way for kids to work out complicated emotions, teaching them emotional regulation. They’ll solve problems with creativity as they play, which often reflects what is going on in their emotional world.
When playing with friends, if they’re not distracted by loud and closed-ended toys, they’ll have an opportunity to make eye contact and talk to their friends, co-regulate, and communicate as they work together to play in the world they create.
Fosters Curiosity
Open ended toys will foster your child’s sense of curiosity as they build, create, and grow during play. They will learn about gravity while stacking blocks and making a fort through trial and error. They will learn effective communication as they play with friends or by playing with dolls by themselves. Their curiosity about the world and relationships with family and peers is ongoing as they grow!
Builds Motor Skills
Kids will build gross motor skills as they move their toys or build a fort, for example. Fine motor skills develop as kids play with small toys, whether sorting buttons, coloring a sign for their castle, or picking up beans to put in their pot for pretend cooking. The physical interaction of play absolutely can’t be replaced or replicated.
Problem Solving & Independence
Toys that don’t dictate a particular outcome lead kids to problem-solve independently. I always call these “figure it out skills” because I watched my kids do exactly that during play. For example, when building a fort, kids will move pillows, blankets, and chairs around until the configuration works how they want it to.
The process of trial and error teaches independence, resilience, and problem solving skills. Kids become flexible thinkers when they can work out how to make something work. “Is this stick too long enough to prop up this blanket for my fort? If it’s too short, what else can we use?”
Quality Over Quantity
Toys that promote open ended play offer a quality that cheap, noisy toys don’t provide. Limiting the number of toys in your child’s space is also better for their attention span.
Toys that are too specific means you will have to have many to keep your child busy. Open ended toys, on the other hand, make it possible to use the same tools for many types of play and will last the long haul.
An uncluttered, peaceful play area allows imaginations to grow and thrive. Try rotating toys to achieve this. The world awaits them, and today, a blanket can be a fort, a cape, a bed, or turn them into a ghost. It’s up to the kids!
Open Ended Toys
These toys can work for a very flexible age range of kids, which is part of the benefit of open ended toys. So instead of listing them by age, I urge you to consider your particular child to know what toys are best for them and when.
Nature
As it has been for ages, nature provides the best open ended toys and playground, all for free! Collect pine cones for art or to make animal dolls, or pine needles and moss to use in a play kitchen. Don’t underestimate the fun of a mud kitchen or a fairy garden to spark hours of flexible playtime.
My kids made it their mission on every walk we ever took to see who could find the best stick. Even with a house full of toys and art supplies, they always played with sticks and accrued a giant collection of their best stick finds to use when they played. The same goes for rocks. Even though I have a house full of teens now, I still find rocks tucked away in random places!
Art Supplies
Keep art supplies on hand to either be the activity or support other play. Kiddos can find endless wonder and play in art, whether painting, coloring a blank page, or gluing buttons, beads, and dried corn to make a collage. Or, they can use art supplies to make a kitchen sign, a crown, or a front door for their fort. The options are endless!
If your child needs a little help getting started on making art before their creativity takes off, try this art meditation exercise to help their creative expression flow. Outdoor art will also promote creativity and mindfulness, so don’t hesitate to change the play scenery when needed.
Moldable Toys
This category of open ended toys can seamlessly go from one theme to the next. Kinetic sand, play dough, clay, or slime are great sensory toys and provide tons of imaginative opportunities.
Add small animal or dinosaur toys, cookie cutters, and other kitchen tools to any of these moldable mediums, and your kiddo will get so many new play ideas.
Building Toys
There is no limit to what can be built with basics like wood tinker toys, lincoln logs, and a bucket of Legos. What I love about these is that they can make anything to go along with other play, with the various shapes, sizes, and buildable qualities. Anything goes!
Magnetic toys are so fun and can stack and stay together, teaching your kiddos a whole new concept. I tend to lean towards wood toys like magnet blocks, although my kids have had literal years of fun with Magna tiles and Smart Max.
Pretend Play
Kids learn so much from pretend play, and a great way to supplement it is to have dress ups and play silks on hand. I like to buy second-hand Halloween costumes since they’ve only been worn once and can fill up a dress up closet on a budget.
Play silks are incredibly versatile for pretend play. They can be almost anything from a hat to a beard or an outfit for a stuffy. Dancing with play silks is fun, too!
A play kitchen or a bucket of kid-safe kitchen tools provides tons of play themes. Add some play food, and the imagination options begin!
Fort Building
Building a fort is a super fun and versatile way to spend an afternoon, and it has been for ages. Gathering blankets, chairs, tablecloths, and sheets for your kids to make a fort is easy.
The wonderful thing about a fort is that it can be a castle, a cave, a house, or anything they want it to be! If you want to get really into it, add some sticks, a laundry basket, and a play silk flag.
Forts are great for indoor or outdoor play. There are also buildable fort sets and teepee-style tents. If nothing else, save any large cardboard box, cut out some windows, and leave them to the kids to play with. It provides endless fun!
Peg Dolls
These little dolls are so wonderful for open ended playtime. They make social play easy, are great for dollhouses, and are also a good addition to the moldable toys above. You can buy unfinished peg dolls and paint them how you wish, or opt for a finished peg doll set or themes like acorn peg dolls.
Small figurine animals and dinosaurs tend to be a big hit with kids. They can make appearances in almost any of these themes above as your child plays.
More Options for Safe Toys
Not only should toys be developmentally appropriate and not overstimulating, they shouldn’t be toxic. Here are some resources to help you choose safer toys for your baby
Non Baby Toy Guide
The Benefits of Battery Free Toys for Kids
Safer Options to Plastic Toys
Are PVC Toys Safe? How to avoid “the poison plastic”
DIY and Upcycled Toy Projects
Mindfulness Toys for Kids
The Art of Toy Rotation
Are Battery Toys Harmful for Babies?