An “educational toy” may seem like a contradictory phrase, but local experts say play can make a fundamental difference in a child’s development.

Michelle Amodei, professor and department head of early education at Slippery Rock University, is considered an early childhood generalist. She said there’s been a rise in the marketing of educational toys in recent years but that all toys have learning implications to them.

“I’ve been in the field 30 years ... I can’t say enough about children and about play,” she said. “Research is pretty clear that it’s lacking in our schools. It’s so valuable to brain development. It impacts every domain of learning.”

Nadine Shingleton, owner of Playthings Etc. toy and hobby store on Route 8 in Clay Township, said the store often holds field trips to teach children and parents about the science behind their fun.

“Everything in here is educational. Toy stores aren’t just for fun,” she said. “We tell kids on our field trips, everything in here is using education. It’s chemistry and physics, magnetism and flight.”

With different stages of childhood development, the types of toys to nurture different skills important to adulthood can vary, Amodei said.

For infants, developing the child on an individual level is key.

“From a young age, some toys will have rattles, this helps motor skills develop. Grabbing is important to physical development,” she said. “Books are vitally important, even if they’re chewing them. There’s the motor skills of opening big pages.”

Toys for infants don’t have to be complicated, according to Amodei.

“Infants don’t need bells and whistles and sound. The simpler the better. The more open-ended the better,” she said.

Open-ended, creative toys are increasingly important as children transition to toddlers.

“People are more conscious of the total development of the child,” Shingleton said. “Even the arts and crafts are educational: the open-ended different mediums help with creativity, and arts help with fine motor skills.”

Amodei said the benefit to arts and crafts comes with from working with the materials.

“Kids are messy. Let them be messy and have messy things in an environment where that’s OK,” she said.

Other types of play — such as dress-up, kitchen play centers, dolls and trucks — help develop toddlers into social beings, Amodei added.

“They need the opportunity to develop social skills. Taking turns, taking a toy and using it in an unusual way, like a block and using it as a phone,” she said. “Simple blocks and materials for pretend play work well (with their) vivid imaginations.”

Shingleton shared her favorite toy, the Water Wow!, helps children be creative, “get messy” and develop fine motor skills. It consists of a water-brush pen and reactive paper that changes color when the pen hits it. Children can choose from different themes like sea creatures, letters, numbers and more.

“One of our best sellers is the Water Wow! It uses hand-eye coordination when kids trace letters and numbers,” she said. “A child can do it all by themselves, it’s portable. And to them, it’s just fun.”

As children transition to elementary school, social skills should further develop by exposure to activities with rules, Amodei said.

“In elementary school, they’ve gotten down self-regulation skills to maneuver sharing. Rules are really important to children in games like kickball,” she said. “In board games, you strategize.”

“You don’t realize you’re learning rules and parameters when you play,” Shingleton said.

One such two-player game involving simple rules is Last One Lost, where the board is a plastic circle with bubble-wrap-like rows. The bubbles have to be pressed down in rows or groups during a turn. The goal is to leave your opponent with the last bubble to press down, and the game can be won every time using simple math strategy.

Playthings Etc. often assists parents who want to develop their child’s literacy and math skills. According to Amodei, all kinds of games lend themselves to math proficiency.

“Some of the simplest board games, and even 4 Square, involve math. There’s math in everything, it takes the adults around (the students) to support that concept,” she said. “Shape-sorting blocks demonstrate geometry, keeping score demonstrates addition.”

The science of toys is the subject of Playthings Etc. field trips, where products are demonstrated to children of all ages.

“On field trips we teach kids about the branches of science. For chemistry we’ll show them a hand boiler, that uses pressure and temperature. We teach them what modeling materials are made out of,” Shingleton said. “People don’t stop and think about the physics principles of toys they’re playing with.”

Popular toys like kinetic sand are used as examples of non-Newtonian fluids, which change their flow behavior to nearly defy the laws of physics. Kinetic sand can be used as a building material, but has been on the rise as a sensory toy for children with autism.

Amodei said toys like this can appeal to those on the autism spectrum and to younger children.

“We’re all kinesthetic learners to a degree. It can be useful for sensory sensitivities. There’s been a rise of diagnosis for those with special needs, which is why those toys seem more popular,” she said.

As time progresses, toys have advanced in scope, Shingleton said.

“Toys are getting a lot more technical. There’s lots of coding toys. But they make them fun, so they’re attractive for kids to do,” she said.

Science kits have progressed from making volcanoes to programming hydrolic arms, robotic animals, the science of candy and slime labs, to name a few.

Shingleton said play contributes to development throughout life.

“For younger ones, it’s fine motor skills. For adults, it’s learning new skills. As you get older, you’re always trying to keep those neurons firing. Juggling is on my bucket list for this year, and I learned a new strategy game for Christmas,” she said.

Amodei said play should be implemented into parts of classroom curriculum to increase healthy development. However, she said lawmakers don’t agree.

“There’s only so much time in a day. Children don’t get to engage deeply into subjects, and kids need that,” she said. “We need to convince them (lawmakers) that this is more beneficial than outscoring Finland on tests. Finland outscores us because their kids play.”