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Action Figure Fun
Learning Basic Skills Through Toys and Play
By Beth Hering
Toys can help subjects like math come to life. For instance, rote practice of basic addition and subtraction facts can get dull fast. But when Darth Vader fights five Jedi on Tuesday and four on Wednesday, the numbers become much more exciting and meaningful. Also, the toys are actual objects – not just abstract concepts. Many kids will learn faster through "hands on" experiences, such as physically putting four Ninja Turtles in one group and three Transformers in another and then joining the groups together to create a total of seven.
Fran Sherman of Highland Park, Ill., says her young nephews enjoy lining up their action figures from shortest to tallest. Such activities can be expanded as children grow to further develop their measuring skills. Challenge them to line up enough figures head to toe to create a certain measurement, such as 2 feet. Or have a contest between groups, such as pirates versus soldiers, to see which line measures the longest. Not only do such games give a child practice using rulers and yardsticks, they provide opportunities to visualize concepts. Two inches is no longer just some increment; it is the height of the Yoda figure.
Another basic skill that can be practiced using action figures is categorization. Categorization is crucial to advanced learning. "The ability to compare and contrast is useful in a variety of situations," says Paulette Braccio, an elementary school teacher in Midlothian, Ill., for more than 30 years. "It helps a student organize thoughts when writing. Also, reading and spelling are easier when a student can find common links between words, such as 'everyone' and 'everything' or 'hat' and 'cat.' In math, sorting items such as coins into like groups makes for simpler addition."
Action figures can be categorized in a variety of ways. Make cleaning up educational (and more fun) by calling for toys to be picked up in a certain order, such as all heroes with capes first and all figures not carrying a weapon second. Allow kids to create their own categories based on shared characteristics in order to help train their brains to look for similarities and differences between items.