Your child certainly has many toys. Like any mom, you are trying to ensure that he is not only entertained, but also properly developed. Therefore, you should definitely purchase plasticine. From this article you will learn how much good it gives both toddlers and older children. Check it out!
We will mention about the advantages of plasticine sticking in a moment. But first we want to briefly explain when we can actually give plasticine to a child to play with. It is assumed that it can be from about a year and a half upwards.
It is known that first everything takes place under your watchful eye. You need to pay attention to whether the toddler will accidentally take a piece to his mouth – and this can happen, because at this age almost everything lands there. Already at the stage of shopping, choose the one, the manufacturer of which clearly informs on the package that the plasticine will not harm the child if he possibly swallows it.
Remember that a child plays by imitation. So start playing with plasticine yourself, tear off small pieces, form them into balls or roll them on the tabletop or imprint blocks or other objects. With older children, on the other hand, you can proceed to create unique figurines or bas-reliefs.
Now that we know when to start the adventure with plasticine, we can now move on to the most interesting part. Below, we have included the most important benefits of plasticine pasting. Find out how much good such a small toy can do.
Plasticine is ideal for practicing the dexterity of fingers and whole hands. This, in turn, is essential in the first years of a child’s life – for handling cutlery, writing, fastening buttons or other precise activities.
Dividing plasticine into smaller pieces, forming shapes, rolling, softening and remolding it requires focus, but also patience. The child is not in a hurry to go anywhere and attentively devotes himself to playing. In doing so, he concentrates on achieving a particular effect, for example, different sized balls, which he will later combine. Of course, the first movements are quite clumsy, with time they become more precise.
Playing with plasticine undoubtedly stimulates imagination and creativity. It’s great fun and an opportunity to get different figures, elements each time, sometimes completely random. Spatial thinking is required, because if a child wants to mold a snowman he saw in a book, he has to think how to do it.
It is also not insignificant that this form of play stimulates both the left and right hemispheres of the brain. This is possible, among other things, because the child uses both hands to knead the plasticine and stimuli arrive from both sides.
This benefit is quite unobvious. While sticking plasticine, the child makes similar movements with his tongue. He does it involuntarily, without realizing it. Such exercise of the speech apparatus has a great effect on improving the ability to say words and assemble sentences.
Finally, there is one more rather obvious benefit. Namely, the point is that during this play the child learns to distinguish colors, to combine them (yellow plus blue plasticine will give green), to distinguish shapes and sizes.
As you can see, plasticine sticking really pays off. So don’t wait and buy a pack for your little one!
main photo: unsplash.com/Julietta Watson
