Creative Play For 2-5s: Recognize and Stimulate Your Child's Natural Talents

by Dorothy Einon

The ages from 2 to 5 are a crucial stage of life for developing a child's talents, and every youngster will advance more quickly with the psychologically designed games and projects in this innovative book. Here are hundreds of practical, fun-filled activities to stimulate the imagination and build skills in music, art, drama, language, science, and math. Parents can use the "talent spotter" tables to identify special gifts and the year-by-year development charts to make sure their child is achieving full potential. To give parents a better grasp of how much difference activities like these can make, the author, a psychologist noted for her research in child development, explains the nature of creativity and its links with imagination, intelligence, and giftedness.

Genres: Parenting

64 pages, Paperback

First published September 25, 1986

Reviews

[April Franklin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Holy gender stereotyping, Batman! I checked this book out because it seemed to have playdough recipes and such. While it does have those, they aren't anything I haven't seen elsewhere. And the constant gender stereotyping drove me nuts. It's one thing to write that certain kinds of toys or games are often preferred by boys or by girls - that's reasonable. But this book went way too far with it - several times it suggested that only boys (or in other sections, only girls) would ever play in a particular way or with a certain kind of toy, and that really annoyed me and ruined the whole book.

[Andrea · Rating 1 out of 5]

The activities are pretty standard and geared towards lower elementary (4-7y) instead of of young toddler.

The reason for a single star was the authors hints that "girls are girls - and - boys are boys", and that with the proper education children will not question their gender identities. This hurt to read in a book aimed at parents, especially one that was written in the last 20 years. I wish more children and parents were supported and encouraged to express themselves in a respectful way while honoring their feelings and needs.

There are many other books out there about play ideas for working with your kids along with fantastic blogs full of ideas on how to support the natural development of your child instead of instilling ideas like girls dress up and boys play in the mud.

[Stella82 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ima dosta saveta i predloga sta i kako se igrati sa decom, i nameravam da isprobam ono sto je za uzrast moje kcerke, tako da je knjiga sasvim OK.

[Sophie Crane · Rating 5 out of 5]

With all this rain we have been having, this is a must buy for parents with bored children! Full of ideas, that cost nothing or very little. Essential for every parents' bookshelf.

[Deborah · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful resource, written by an expert in child development and the role of play in learning, to help parents recognize their childrens' natural talents and interests. Most of the book is devoted to suggestions for age-appropriate activities to encourage childrens' interests (and expose them to new interests so they become more well-rounded). The developmental charts in the front section are spot on (very helpful when you're wondering what behavior and physical readiness is age-appropriate), and my kids loved the suggested activities, which mostly use things you already have around the house and require a fair amount of hands-on involvement from parents ('you are their best teacher' is the underlying philosophy). Much more sensible than it might seem from the make-your-child-a-star marketing bumph on the cover.

[Charity · Rating 4 out of 5]

I checked out this book from the library and plan to buy a copy to have on-hand as a reference. There are so many ideas and recipes (for paint, play-dough, etc). I like that it spans such a range of ages and that so many of the projects involve homemade and found materials. Some of the activities are a little more involved than I will likely get into on a regular basis, but it has helped me feel less hesitant about messy projects. It's not organized as intuitively as I would like, but I'm finding things fairly easily when I go back to look something up.

[Nicola · Rating 3 out of 5]

The most useful thing for me was information on developmental milestones between 2-5 (by 6 month increments). The activity section is largely generic (i.e. music, drawing etc.) and how to spot 'talent' in your pre-schooler.