Using toys to teach science

Abstract

This paper is on the use of toys to aid in science education and to share various issues and implications relating the use of toys in teaching. The rationale of using toys for education; the relations and impact of using toys to teach; the advantages of using toys; the classifications of toys and descriptions of how toys are being used are depicted in this article. To date, a collection of more than 300 toys has been compiled. In this paper, five selected toys are featured, namely: 1) Drinking Bird, 2) Floating Pen, 3) Pecking Chickens, 4) Cross-Joint, and 5) Mirror Mirage. For each toy, coloured photographs and diagrams are illustrated with explicit explanations on the functionality of the toy, theories involved, topics of interests and some questions for further investigations. In conclusion, we advocate that the use of toys have enormous potentials in education and can be integrated in various subject disciplines in different levels of school science education.