When a child begins to tackle a new milestone, it’s fascinating to watch and fun to encourage! The best part for me is when they finally “get it,” break out in a grin from ear to ear and laugh—because it’s fun to learn to cruise, hop on one foot, catch a ball or play with a peer!
LivingPlaying makes it easy for you to find the best toys for your child.
If you want to create an environment that supports creative play and helps your child grow his or her skills, making informed decisions about what your child needs is also part of the fun! If you are like me, you want to find toys, games and products that bring a lot of joy, as well as encourage all that forward movement.
LivingPlaying’s unique rating system quickly identifies specific toys that your child will enjoy and that are appropriate for his or her age and emerging skill set.
We can help you make the right choices with confidence.
What are emerging skills?
Emerging (or developing) skills are abilities that children are beginning to use or make progress in, but have not yet mastered. Take the following example:
Emily, a nine-month-old baby, is learning how to crawl. She’s begun to rock back and forth on all fours. For her, crawling is an emerging skill. Her two-year-old brother James learned to crawl when he was about Emily’s age. Crawling is now a mastered skill for James. Learning to play cooperatively with his peers in playgroup, however, is an emerging skill for him. He needs support and practice to master this skill, just as his sister does with crawling.
Why are these skills important?
The physical, social and cognitive skills of a child’s early years are the scaffolding on which more complex abilities are built throughout childhood. Encouraging and supporting your child’s unique emerging skill set will help him or her secure those skills and, in turn, develop confidence and independence.
What do these symbols mean?
The symbols that you see throughout this site refer broadly to the five emerging physical, intellectual, social, and emotional skills that typically develop in a predictable, cumulative pattern throughout childhood. These are: Fine Motor, Gross Motor, Sensory, Cognitive, and Social and Language Skills.
What do they mean when they appear next to a toy, game or product?
One or more specific skill symbols next to an item indicate that when used as intended, the product primarily encourages development of that particular emerging skill or skills.
The Symbols Defined:
 Gross Motor Skills: Gross motor skills are large muscle movements usually involving the arms, legs, feet, or even the entire body. Jumping rope, crawling across the floor, reaching for a toy, walking, and running are examples of gross motor skills at work.
 Fine Motor Skills: Fine motor skills are smaller muscle movements involving fingers, wrists, the mouth, or the tongue. Blowing out candles, picking up a block between a finger and thumb, pointing toes, coloring, banging a drum, and using scissors are examples of fine motor skills at work.
 Sensory Skills: Sensory skills provide feedback from the senses to the brain so that a child can interact with his or her environment successfully. These skills involve seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, tasting, balancing, and body awareness A child hearing a friend call his or her name, feeling cold water in a pool, smelling fresh cut grass, swinging on a swing (balance), and walking without looking at his or her feet (body awareness) are examples of sensory skills at work.
 Social and Language Skills: Social and language skills involve interacting with others successfully through cooperation and communication. These skills include having relationships, responding to feelings, using speech or body language to communicate, and understanding what others are saying.
 Cognitive Skills: Cognitive, or thinking, skills involve using mental processes to learn, understand, problem-solve, reason, and remember. Playing a simple card game, putting together a puzzle, learning to add or subtract, or playing checkers are examples of cognitive skills at work. |
