Developing Young Scientists with Educational Dinosaur Toys

It seems like a rite of passage for a child to go through the dinosaur phase. Most children, boys and girls alike, have a time in their early life where dinosaurs and dinosaur toys are the most fascinating things on the planet. They can’t get enough of T-Rex, Triceratops, and Stegosaurus. What did they look like? What did they eat? What happened to make them go extinct? Studies have found that the more curious a child is about a subject, the better their brains will receive and process the information. They become a sponge, soaking up all the information they are given and retaining it. This is why, when a child is focused on learning about dinosaurs, they can remember a myriad of names and facts about dinosaurs that most adults can’t even begin to hope to retain.

Have you ever considered that playing with educational dinosaur toys could actually be fostering a love for science that could grow with them into adulthood? Often the knowledge children have about dinosaurs is very specific and disconnected from the broader science picture. However, with a little involvement and cultivation, this love for dinosaurs can easily be broadened to love for science in general.  

Broadening Their Horizons

In order to develop a love of the greater sciences based off of a child’s love of dinosaurs, you must help them make connections between their interest in dinosaurs and bigger concepts. Here are a couple of things that you can do to help them make these connections:

• Make sure your information is up to date. Paleontology is an ever-changing field. As your child learns about dinosaurs, make sure that they have the most recent information available to them. As you open their eyes to the many resources available for them to learn from, make sure you take the opportunity to explain that not everything they see and hear will be backed by evidence and stress the importance of doing your research.

• Talk about concepts, not just statistics. Knowing how tall T-Rex was or how much Brachiosaurs weighed is interesting, but studies show that even small children can grasp certain scientific concepts such as an animal’s need for food to survive or that animal babies look like their animal parents. Once you have solidified an understanding of basic science concepts, you can begin introducing more in-depth concepts.

• Go to museums. Museums are perfect places for children to get hands-on experience with science. Asking children open-ended questions about what they see and experience can turn on their curiosity and open the door for additional learning opportunities.

• Compare extinct animals to living animals. As we study extinct animals and their living counterparts we often find similarities between the problems they encountered and the solutions they used to solve their problems. By helping children to understand the living animal we can help them to understand the extinct animal, even though they will never encounter it in their lifetime.

• Encourage critical thinking skills. As you work through the above steps also make sure you are helping children to see the whole picture. Encourage them to look at things from more than one point of view. There are many times in the history of the world that scientific discoveries have been turned on their heads because someone decided to look at the popular opinion differently and found evidence to suggest that things weren’t actually as they seemed.

Safari LTD and Dinosaur Toys

Safari LTD believes that toys are one of the best ways to teach and develop young minds. We do this by crafting toys specially designed to open a child’s imagination. Our sculptors and artists research each animal before creating a model to ensure that they have the most up to date information on the animal’s anatomy. We want all of our toys to be just as educational as they are fun to play with. 

When it comes to dinosaurs, we know that children have the most perceptive eyes. All of our dinosaur figures are created using the most recent scientific information to get as close as possible to what scientists think dinosaurs really looked like. Additionally, all of our figures are made with flexible, non-toxic plastic materials, so while they are not invincible, they are very durable, perfect for playing with anywhere. These dinosaur figures truly offer a window into the prehistoric world for all of your little dinosaur enthusiasts.

With over 75 different educational dinosaur toys in our prehistoric collection, we want to help you promote learning and imagination development in your child.