Toys for a Daycare

A daycare is the type of business where you're certain to have work for as many years as people keep having babies and need someone to take care of their children. The downside to starting a daycare business is that you will have significant competition. Parents will be comparing your qualifications and what your daycare offers with others and they'll base their decision on whomever they feel provides the best care for their child(ren).

One way you can stand apart from the competition is by the types of toys you provide and the quality of those toys. If you're a parent of young children, you may already have an idea of what a parent might want available for their young child to play with. Here are a few other ideas and points to keep in mind when buying daycare toys.

Toy Safety

Safety will be one of the biggest concerns when it comes to selecting toys. For a daycare with small children it's better to avoid small toys or larger toys with many smaller parts. Bigger toys with fewer parts are usually a better choice.

Whatever toys you choose, you need to make sure that they're used as they should be. Toys are made to be used a certain way and if they're misused, they could cause injury. Make sure you have a selection of age appropriate toys for all groups of ages in your daycare.

Toys for Development

Young children learn to identify colors and objects by what adults provide them. The proper toys can make learning fundamental skills easier, faster and more enjoyable for the child. This is why careful thought needs to be put into choosing toys for development if you'd like to start a daycare. While the standards like rocking horses and wooden blocks are still good choices, it's a good idea to also include multi-functional learning toys.

Combining specialized toys with basic alphabet blocks and coloring books will help the children in your care develop physically and mentally.

For very young children the best toy choices are sorting toys, matching toys and musical toys. Young children are very sensory and sorting toys provide hands-on learning opportunities and can help a child learn about basic shapes and colors. Examples of sorting toys include pegs with shapes, slotted toys for different shaped objects, colored sorting mats and numbered holes.

Musical toys can teach a child about sound and to relate certain sounds with a specific event. For example, a child will learn very quickly if a toy that makes a sound when a certain button is pressed. Matching toys work a child's brain by teaching him or her the relationship between items. The child will also learn to look for similarities. Matching games are also a good game option for older children.