A toy or plaything is an object that is used primarily to provide
entertainment
Entertainment is a form of activity that holds the attention and interest of an audience or gives pleasure and delight. It can be an idea or a task, but is more likely to be one of the activities or events that have developed over thousa ...
. Simple examples include
toy blocks,
board games
Board games are tabletop games that typically use . These pieces are moved or placed on a pre-marked board (playing surface) and often include elements of table, card, role-playing, and miniatures games as well.
Many board games feature a co ...
, and
dolls. Toys are often designed for use by children, although many are designed specifically for adults and pets. Toys can provide utilitarian benefits, including physical exercise, cultural awareness, or academic education. Additionally, utilitarian objects, especially those which are no longer needed for their original purpose, can be used as toys. Examples include children building a fort with empty cereal boxes and tissue paper spools, or a toddler playing with a broken TV remote control. The term "toy" can also be used to refer to utilitarian objects purchased for enjoyment rather than need, or for expensive necessities for which a large fraction of the cost represents its ability to provide enjoyment to the owner, such as luxury cars, high-end motorcycles, gaming computers, and flagship smartphones.
Playing with toys can be an enjoyable way of training young children for life experiences. Different materials like wood, clay, paper, and plastic are used to make toys. Newer forms of toys include
interactive digital entertainment and
smart toy A smart toy is an interactive toy which effectively has its own intelligence by virtue of on-board electronics. These enable it to learn, behave according to preset patterns, and alter its actions depending upon environmental stimuli and user input. ...
s. Some toys are produced primarily as collectors' items and are intended for display only.
The origin of toys is
prehistoric; dolls representing infants, animals, and soldiers, as well as representations of tools used by adults, are readily found at archaeological sites. The origin of the word "toy" is unknown, but it is believed that it was first used in the 14th century. Toys are mainly made for children.
The oldest known doll toy is thought to be 4,000 years old.
Playing with toys is an important part of aging. Younger children use toys to discover their identity, help with
cognition, learn cause and effect, explore relationships, become stronger physically, and practice skills needed in adulthood. Adults on occasion use toys to form and strengthen social bonds, teach, help in therapy, and to remember and reinforce lessons from their youth.
History
Antiquity
Most children have been said to play with whatever they can find, such as sticks and rocks.
Toys and
games have been retrieved from the sites of ancient civilizations, and have been mentioned in ancient literature. Toys excavated from the
Indus valley civilization (3010–1500 BCE) include small carts, whistles shaped like birds, and toy monkeys that could slide down a string.
[MrDonn.org – Daily Life in Ancient India, including the mysterious Indus Valley Civilization]
The earliest toys were made from natural materials, such as rocks, sticks, and
clay
Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4).
Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay par ...
. Thousands of years ago,
Egyptian children played with
doll
A doll is a model typically of a human or humanoid character, often used as a toy for children. Dolls have also been used in traditional religious rituals throughout the world. Traditional dolls made of materials such as clay and wood are foun ...
s that had wigs and movable limbs, which were made from stone, pottery, and wood.
However, evidence of toys in ancient Egypt is exceptionally difficult to identify with certainty in the archaeological record. Small figurines and models found in tombs are usually interpreted as ritual objects; those from settlement sites are more easily labelled as toys. These include spinning tops, balls of spring, and wooden models of animals with movable parts.
In
ancient Greece
Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of Classical Antiquity, classical antiquity ( AD 600), th ...
and
ancient Rome
In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–509 BC ...
, children played with dolls made of
wax
Waxes are a diverse class of organic compounds that are lipophilic, malleable solids near ambient temperatures. They include higher alkanes and lipids, typically with melting points above about 40 °C (104 °F), melting to giv ...
or
terracotta
Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based unglazed or glazed ceramic where the fired body is porous.
In applied art, craft, construction, and architecture, terracotta ...
: sticks,
bows and arrows, and
yo-yo
A yo-yo (also spelled yoyo) is a toy consisting of an axle connected to two disks, and a string looped around the axle, similar to a spool. It is an ancient toy with proof of existence since 500 BCE. The yo-yo was also called a bandalore in ...
s. When Greek children, especially girls, came of age, it was customary for them to sacrifice the toys of their childhood to the
gods
A deity or god is a supernatural being who is considered divine or sacred. The ''Oxford Dictionary of English'' defines deity as a god or goddess, or anything revered as divine. C. Scott Littleton defines a deity as "a being with powers greater ...
. On the eve of their wedding, young girls around fourteen would offer their dolls in a temple as a
rite of passage
A rite of passage is a ceremony or ritual of the passage which occurs when an individual leaves one group to enter another. It involves a significant change of status in society. In cultural anthropology the term is the Anglicisation of ''rite ...
into adulthood.
The oldest known
mechanical puzzle
A mechanical puzzle is a puzzle presented as a set of mechanically interlinked pieces in which the solution is to manipulate the whole object or parts of it. While puzzles of this type have been in use by humanity as early as the 3rd century BC ...
also comes from ancient Greece and appeared in the 3rd century BCE. The game consisted of a square divided into 14 parts, and the aim was to create different shapes from the pieces. In
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
, "puzzle-locks" were made as early as the 17th century (CE).
Enlightenment Era
Toys became more widespread with changing Western attitudes towards children and childhood brought about by the
Enlightenment. Previously, children had often been thought of as small adults, who were expected to work in order to produce the goods that the family needed to survive. As children's culture scholar Stephen Kline has argued,
Medieval
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...
children were "more fully integrated into the daily flux of making and consuming, of getting along. They had no autonomy, separate statuses, privileges, special rights or forms of social comportment that were entirely their own.”
As these ideas began changing during the Enlightenment Era, blowing bubbles from leftover washing up soap became a popular pastime, as shown in the painting ''The Soap Bubble'' (1739) by
Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, and other popular toys included
hoops,
toy wagon
A toy wagon has the same structure as the traditional, larger wagon, but is much smaller and has an open top. An average wagon is able to seat one child, and is generally propelled by human power through a handle at the front. Some famous brands ...
s,
kite
A kite is a tethered heavier-than-air or lighter-than-air craft with wing surfaces that react against the air to create lift and drag forces. A kite consists of wings, tethers and anchors. Kites often have a bridle and tail to guide the fac ...
s,
spinning wheel
A spinning wheel is a device for spinning thread or yarn from fibres. It was fundamental to the cotton textile industry prior to the Industrial Revolution. It laid the foundations for later machinery such as the spinning jenny and spinning f ...
s and
puppets. Many
board game
Board games are tabletop games that typically use . These pieces are moved or placed on a pre-marked board (playing surface) and often include elements of table, card, role-playing, and miniatures games as well.
Many board games feature a co ...
s were produced by
John Jefferys
John Jefferys, is the first game designer to whom a game design can be definitively ascribed (in the Anglophone world).
Life
He is the designer of the 1759 game ''A Journey Through Europe'', which was based upon ''Game of the Goose''. The game i ...
in the 1750s, including ''A Journey Through Europe''. The game was very similar to modern board games; players moved along a track with the throw of a
die (a
teetotum
A teetotum (or T-totum) is a form of spinning top most commonly used for gambling games. It has a polygonal body marked with letters or numbers, which indicate the result of each spin. Usage goes back to (at least) ancient Greeks and Romans, w ...
was actually used) and landing on different spaces would either help or hinder the player.
In the nineteenth century, Western values prioritized toys with an educational purpose, such as puzzles, books, cards and board games. Religion-themed toys were also popular, including a model
Noah's Ark
Noah's Ark ( he, תיבת נח; Biblical Hebrew: ''Tevat Noaḥ'')The word "ark" in modern English comes from Old English ''aerca'', meaning a chest or box. (See Cresswell 2010, p.22) The Hebrew word for the vessel, ''teva'', occurs twice in ...
with miniature animals and objects from other
Bible
The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts ...
scenes. With growing prosperity among the
middle class
The middle class refers to a class of people in the middle of a social hierarchy, often defined by occupation, income, education, or social status. The term has historically been associated with modernity, capitalism and political debate. Com ...
, children had more
leisure
Leisure has often been defined as a quality of experience or as free time. Free time is time spent away from business, work, job hunting, domestic chores, and education, as well as necessary activities such as eating and sleeping. Leisur ...
time on their hands, which led to the application of industrial methods to the manufacture of toys.
More complex mechanical and
optical
Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behaviour of visible, ultravio ...
-based toys were also invented during the nineteenth century.
Carpenter and Westley began to mass-produce the
kaleidoscope
A kaleidoscope () is an optical instrument with two or more reflecting surfaces (or mirrors) tilted to each other at an angle, so that one or more (parts of) objects on one end of these mirrors are shown as a regular symmetrical pattern when v ...
, invented by Sir
David Brewster in 1817, and had sold over 200,000 items within three months in London and Paris. The company was also able to mass-produce
magic lantern
The magic lantern, also known by its Latin name , is an early type of image projector that used pictures—paintings, prints, or photographs—on transparent plates (usually made of glass), one or more lenses, and a light source. Because a si ...
s for use in
phantasmagoria
Phantasmagoria (, also fantasmagorie, fantasmagoria) was a form of horror theatre that (among other techniques) used one or more magic lanterns to project frightening images, such as skeletons, demons, and ghosts, onto walls, smoke, or sem ...
and galanty shows, by developing a method of
mass production using a copper plate printing process. Popular imagery on the lanterns included
royalty,
flora
Flora is all the plant life present in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring (indigenous (ecology), indigenous) native plant, native plants. Sometimes bacteria and fungi are also referred to as flora, as in the terms '' ...
and
fauna
Fauna is all of the animal life present in a particular region or time. The corresponding term for plants is ''flora'', and for fungi, it is ''funga''. Flora, fauna, funga and other forms of life are collectively referred to as ''Biota (ecology ...
, and geographical/man-made structures from around the world.
[Shedding some light on the magic lantern](_blank)
. Mervyn Heard. Retrieved 1 August 2011. The modern
zoetrope
A zoetrope is one of several pre-film animation devices that produce the illusion of motion by displaying a sequence of drawings or photographs showing progressive phases of that motion. It was basically a cylindrical variation of the phénak ...
was invented in 1833 by British mathematician
William George Horner
William George Horner (9 June 1786 – 22 September 1837) was a British mathematician. Proficient in classics; mathematics, he was a schoolmaster, headmaster and schoolkeeper, who wrote extensively on functional equations, number theory and app ...
and was popularized in the 1860s. Wood and
porcelain
Porcelain () is a ceramic material made by heating substances, generally including materials such as kaolinite, in a kiln to temperatures between . The strength and translucence of porcelain, relative to other types of pottery, arises main ...
doll
A doll is a model typically of a human or humanoid character, often used as a toy for children. Dolls have also been used in traditional religious rituals throughout the world. Traditional dolls made of materials such as clay and wood are foun ...
s in miniature
doll houses were popular with middle-class girls, while boys played with marbles and toy trains.
Industrial Era and mass-marketed toys
The golden age of toy development occurred during the
Industrial Era.
Real wage
Real wages are wages adjusted for inflation, or, equivalently, wages in terms of the amount of goods and services that can be bought. This term is used in contrast to nominal wages or unadjusted wages.
Because it has been adjusted to account ...
s were rising steadily in the Western world, allowing even working-class families to afford toys for their children, and industrial techniques of precision engineering and mass production were able to provide the supply to meet this rising demand. Intellectual emphasis was also increasingly being placed on the importance of a wholesome and happy childhood for the future development of children.
Franz Kolb, a German pharmacist, invented
plasticine
Plasticine is a putty-like modelling material made from calcium salts, petroleum jelly and aliphatic acids. Though originally a brand name for the British version of the product, it is now applied generically in English as a product category ...
in 1880, and in 1900 commercial production of the material as a children's toy began.
Frank Hornby was a visionary in toy development and manufacture and was responsible for the invention and production of three of the most popular lines of toys based on
engineering principles in the twentieth century:
Meccano
Meccano is a brand of model construction system created in 1898 by Frank Hornby in Liverpool, England. The system consists of reusable metal strips, plates, angle girders, wheels, axles and gears, and plastic parts that are connected using nut ...
,
Hornby Model Railways and
Dinky Toys
Dinky Toys was the brand name for a range of die-cast zamak zinc alloy scale model vehicles produced by British toy company Meccano Ltd. They were made in England from 1934 to 1979, at a factory in Binns Road in Liverpool.
Dinky Toys were am ...
.
Meccano was a
model
A model is an informative representation of an object, person or system. The term originally denoted the plans of a building in late 16th-century English, and derived via French and Italian ultimately from Latin ''modulus'', a measure.
Models c ...
construction system that consisted of re-usable metal strips, plates,
angle
In Euclidean geometry, an angle is the figure formed by two rays, called the '' sides'' of the angle, sharing a common endpoint, called the '' vertex'' of the angle.
Angles formed by two rays lie in the plane that contains the rays. Angles a ...
girders, wheels, axles and
gear
A gear is a rotating circular machine part having cut teeth or, in the case of a cogwheel or gearwheel, inserted teeth (called ''cogs''), which mesh with another (compatible) toothed part to transmit (convert) torque and speed. The basic ...
s, with
nuts and
bolts to connect the pieces and enabled the building of working models and mechanical devices.
Dinky Toys
Dinky Toys was the brand name for a range of die-cast zamak zinc alloy scale model vehicles produced by British toy company Meccano Ltd. They were made in England from 1934 to 1979, at a factory in Binns Road in Liverpool.
Dinky Toys were am ...
pioneered the manufacture of
die-cast toy
A die-cast toy is a toy or a collectible model produced by using the die casting, die-casting method of putting molten lead, zinc alloy or plastic in a mold to produce a particular shape. Such toys are made of metal, with plastic, rubber, glass ...
s with the production of toy cars, trains and ships and model train sets became popular in the 1920s. The
Britain's company revolutionized the production of
toy soldiers
A toy soldier is a miniature figurine that represents a soldier. The term applies to depictions of uniformed military personnel from all eras, and includes knights, cowboys, American Indians, pirates, samurai, and other subjects that involve ...
with the invention of the process of
hollow casting in lead in 1893 – the company's products remained the industry standard for many years.
Puzzles became popular as well. In 1893, the English lawyer
Angelo John Lewis, writing under the pseudonym of Professor Hoffman, wrote a book called ''Puzzles Old and New''. It contained, among other things, more than 40 descriptions of puzzles with secret opening mechanisms. This book grew into a reference work for puzzle games and was very popular at the time. The
Tangram
The tangram () is a dissection puzzle consisting of seven flat polygons, called ''tans'', which are put together to form shapes. The objective is to replicate a pattern (given only an outline) generally found in a puzzle book using all seven pi ...
puzzle, originally from China, spread to Europe and America in the 19th century.
In 1903, a year after publishing ''
The Tale of Peter Rabbit
''The Tale of Peter Rabbit'' is a children's book written and illustrated by Beatrix Potter that follows mischievous and disobedient young Peter Rabbit as he gets into, and is chased around, the garden of Mr. McGregor. He escapes and returns ...
'', English author
Beatrix Potter
Helen Beatrix Potter (, 28 July 186622 December 1943) was an English writer, illustrator, natural scientist, and conservationist. She is best known for her children's books featuring animals, such as '' The Tale of Peter Rabbit'', which was ...
created the first
Peter Rabbit
Peter Rabbit is a fictional animal character in various children's stories by English author Beatrix Potter.
A mischievous, adventurous young rabbit who wears a blue jacket, he first appeared in ''The Tale of Peter Rabbit'' in 1902, and subs ...
soft toy
A stuffed toy is a toy doll with an outer fabric sewn from a textile and stuffed with flexible material. They are known by many names, such as plush toys, plushies, stuffed animals, and stuffies; in Britain and Australia, they may also be cal ...
and registered him at the
Patent Office in London, making Peter the oldest licensed character. It was followed by other "spin-off" merchandise over the years, including painting books and board games. The ''
Smithsonian'' magazine stated, "Potter was also an entrepreneur and a pioneer in licensing and merchandising literary characters. Potter built a retail empire out of her “bunny book” that is worth $500 million today. In the process, she created a system that continues to benefit all licensed characters, from
Mickey Mouse to
Harry Potter."
In tandem with the development of mass-produced toys, Enlightenment ideals about children's rights to education and leisure time came to fruition. During the late 18th and early 19th century, many families needed to send their children to work in factories and other sites to make ends meet—just as their predecessors had required their labor producing household goods in the medieval era. Business owners' exploitation and abuse of child laborers during this period differed from how children had been treated as workers within a family unit, though. Thanks to advocacy including photographic documentation of children's exploitation and abuse by business owners, Western nations enacted a series of child labor laws, putting an end to child labor in nations such as the U.S. (1949). This fully entrenched, through law, the Western idea that childhood is a time for ''leisure'', not work—and with leisure time comes more space for consumer goods such as toys.
During the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
, some new types of toys were created through accidental innovation. After trying to create a replacement for
synthetic rubber, the American
Earl L. Warrick inadvertently invented "nutty putty" during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
. Later, Peter Hodgson recognized the potential as a childhood plaything and packaged it as
Silly Putty
Silly Putty is a toy based on silicone polymers that have unusual physical properties. It bounces, but it breaks when given a sharp blow, and it can also flow like a liquid. It contains a viscoelastic liquid silicone, a type of non-Newtonian f ...
. Similarly,
Play-Doh
Play-Doh is a modeling compound for young children to make arts and crafts projects at home. The product was first manufactured in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States, as a wallpaper cleaner in the 1930s. Play-Doh was then reworked and marketed to Ci ...
was originally created as a wallpaper cleaner.
In 1943
Richard James was experimenting with springs as part of his military research when he saw one come loose and fall to the floor. He was intrigued by the way it flopped around on the floor. He spent two years fine-tuning the design to find the best gauge of steel and coil; the result was the
Slinky, which went on to sell in stores throughout the United States.
After the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
, as society became ever more affluent and new technology and materials (plastics) for toy manufacture became available, toys became cheap and ubiquitous in households across the Western World. At this point,
name-brand toys became widespread in the U.S.–a new phenomenon that helped market mass-produce toys to audiences of children growing up with ample leisure time and during a period of relative prosperity.
Among the more well-known products of the 1950s there was the Danish company
Lego's line of colourful interlocking plastic brick construction sets (based on
Hilary Page
Hilary "Harry" Fisher Page (20 August 1904 – 24 June 1957) was an English toy maker and inventor of Self-Locking Building Bricks, the predecessor of Lego bricks. He founded the Kiddicraft toy company.
Early life
Hilary "Harry" Fisher Page ...
's
Kiddicraft
Hilary "Harry" Fisher Page (20 August 1904 – 24 June 1957) was an English toy maker and inventor of Self-Locking Building Bricks, the predecessor of Lego bricks. He founded the Kiddicraft toy company.
Early life
Hilary "Harry" Fisher Page ...
Self-Locking Bricks, described by London's
V&A Museum of Childhood
Young V&A, formerly the V&A Museum of Childhood, is a branch of the Victoria and Albert Museum (the "V&A"), which is the United Kingdom's national museum of applied arts. It is in Bethnal Green and is located on the Green itself in the East End ...
as among the "must-have toys" of the 1940s),
Mr. Potato Head, the
Barbie doll (inspired by the
Bild Lilli doll
The Bild Lilli doll was a German fashion doll launched on August 12, 1955, and produced until 1964. Its design was based on the comic-strip character Lilli, created by Reinhard Beuthien for the German tabloid newspaper ''Bild''. The doll was made ...
from Germany), and
Action Man. The
Rubik's Cube became an enormous seller in the 1980s. In modern times, there are computerized dolls that can recognize and identify objects, the voice of their owner, and choose among hundreds of pre-programmed phrases with which to respond.
Culture
The act of children's play with toys embodies the values set forth by the adults of their specific community, but through the lens of the child's perspective. Within cultural societies, toys are a medium to enhance a child's cognitive, social, and linguistic learning.
In some cultures, toys are used as a way to enhance a child's skillset within the traditional boundaries of their future roles in the community. In
Saharan and
North Africa
North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...
n cultures, play is facilitated by children through the use of toys to enact scenes recognizable in their community such as hunting and herding. The value is placed in a realistic version of development in preparing a child for the future they are likely to grow up into. This allows the child to imagine and create a personal interpretation of how they view the adult world.
However, in other cultures, toys are used to expand the development of a child's cognition in an idealistic fashion. In these communities, adults place the value of play with toys to be on the aspirations they set forth for their child. In the Western culture, the Barbie and Action-Man represent lifelike figures but in an imaginative state out of reach from the society of these children and adults. These toys give way to a unique world in which children's play is isolated and independent of the social constraints placed on society leaving the children free to delve into the imaginary and idealized version of what their development in life could be.
In addition, children from differing communities may treat their toys in different ways based on their cultural practices. Children in more affluent communities may tend to be possessive of their toys, while children from poorer communities may be more willing to share and interact more with other children. The importance the child places on possession is dictated by the values in place within the community that the children observe on a daily basis.
Child development
Toys, like play itself, serve multiple purposes in both humans and animals. They provide entertainment while fulfilling an educational role. Toys enhance
cognitive behavior and stimulate creativity. They aid in the development of physical and mental skills which are necessary in later life.
Wooden
blocks, though simple, are regarded by early childhood education experts such as Sally Cartwright (1974) as an excellent toy for young children; she praised the fact that they are relatively easy to engage with, can be used in repeatable and predictable ways, and are versatile and open-ended, allowing for a wide variety of developmentally appropriate play. Andrew Witkin, director of marketing for
Mega Brands, told ''
Investor's Business Daily
''Investor's Business Daily'' (''IBD'') is an American newspaper and website covering the stock market, international business, finance and economics. Founded in 1984 by William O'Neil as a print news publication, it is owned by News Corp and is ...
'' that "They help develop hand-eye coordination, math and science skills and also let kids be creative."
Other toys like
marbles
A marble is a small spherical object often made from glass, clay, steel, plastic, or agate. They vary in size, and most commonly are about in diameter. These toys can be used for a variety of games called ''marbles'', as well being placed in mar ...
,
jackstones, and
balls serve similar functions in child development, allowing children to use their minds and bodies to learn about
spatial relationships,
cause and effect, and a wide range of other skills.
One example of the dramatic ways that toys can influence child development involves clay sculpting toys such as
Play-Doh
Play-Doh is a modeling compound for young children to make arts and crafts projects at home. The product was first manufactured in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States, as a wallpaper cleaner in the 1930s. Play-Doh was then reworked and marketed to Ci ...
and
Silly Putty
Silly Putty is a toy based on silicone polymers that have unusual physical properties. It bounces, but it breaks when given a sharp blow, and it can also flow like a liquid. It contains a viscoelastic liquid silicone, a type of non-Newtonian f ...
and their home-made counterparts. Mary Ucci, Educational Director of the Child Study Center of
Wellesley College, has demonstrated how such toys positively impact the
physical development,
cognitive development
Cognitive development is a field of study in neuroscience and psychology focusing on a child's development in terms of information processing, conceptual resources, perceptual skill, language learning, and other aspects of the developed adult bra ...
,
emotional development, and
social development of children.
[ (Note that the full-text online version requires login.)]
Toys for infants often make use of distinctive sounds, bright colors, and unique
textures. Through repetition of play with toys, infants begin to recognize shapes and colors.
Play-Doh
Play-Doh is a modeling compound for young children to make arts and crafts projects at home. The product was first manufactured in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States, as a wallpaper cleaner in the 1930s. Play-Doh was then reworked and marketed to Ci ...
,
Silly Putty
Silly Putty is a toy based on silicone polymers that have unusual physical properties. It bounces, but it breaks when given a sharp blow, and it can also flow like a liquid. It contains a viscoelastic liquid silicone, a type of non-Newtonian f ...
and other hands-on materials allow the child to make toys of their own.
Educational toy
Educational toys (sometimes also called "instructive toys") are objects of play, generally designed for children, which are expected to stimulate learning. They are often intended to meet an educational purpose such as helping a child develop a ...
s for school age children of often contain a
puzzle, problem-solving technique, or mathematical proposition. Often toys designed for older audiences, such as teenagers or adults, demonstrate advanced concepts.
Newton's cradle
The Newton's cradle is a device that demonstrates the conservation of momentum and the conservation of energy with swinging spheres. When one sphere at the end is lifted and released, it strikes the stationary spheres, transmitting a force thro ...
, a desk toy designed by
Simon Prebble, demonstrates the
conservation of momentum and energy.
Not all toys are appropriate for all ages of children. Even some toys which are marketed for a specific age range can even harm the development of children in that range, such as when for example toys meant for young girls contribute to the ongoing problem of girls' sexualization in Western culture.
A study suggested that supplying fewer toys in the environment allows toddlers to better focus to explore and play more creatively. The provision of four rather than sixteen toys is thus suggested to promote children's development and healthy play.
Age compression
Age compression is the modern trend of children moving through play stages faster than was the case in the past. Children have a desire to progress to more complex toys at a faster pace, girls in particular. Barbie dolls, for example, were once marketed to girls around 8 years old but have been found to be more popular in recent years with girls around 3 years old,
with most girls outgrowing the brand by about age 7. The packaging for the dolls labels them appropriate for ages 3 and up. Boys, in contrast, apparently enjoy toys and games over a longer timespan, gravitating towards toys that meet their interest in assembling and disassembling mechanical toys, and toys that "move fast and things that fight". An industry executive points out that girls have entered the "
tween" phase by the time they are 8 years old and want non-traditional toys, whereas boys have been maintaining an interest in traditional toys until they are 12 years old, meaning the traditional toy industry holds onto their boy customers for 50% longer than their girl customers.
Girls gravitate towards "music, clothes, make-up, television talent shows and celebrities". As young children are more exposed to and drawn to music intended for older children and teens, companies are having to rethink how they develop and market their products. Girls also demonstrate a longer loyalty to characters in toys and games marketed towards them.
A variety of global toy companies have marketed themselves to this aspect of girls' development, for example, the
Hello Kitty brand and the
Disney Princess franchise. Boys have shown an interest in computer games at an ever-younger age in recent years.
Gender
Certain toys, such as
Barbie
Barbie is a fashion doll manufactured by American toy company Mattel, Inc. and launched on March 9, 1959. American businesswoman Ruth Handler is credited with the creation of the doll using a German doll called Bild Lilli as her inspiration. ...
dolls and toy soldiers, are often perceived as being more acceptable for one gender than the other. The turning point for the addition of gender to toys came about in the 1960s and 1970s. Before 1975, only about two percent of toys were labeled by gender, whereas today on the Disney store's website, considered a dominating global force for toys by researcher Claire Miller, all toys are labeled by gender.
[ The journal ''Sex Roles'' began publishing research on this topic in 1975, focusing on the effects of gender in youth. Too, many psychological textbooks began to address this new issue. Along with these publications, researchers also started to challenge the ideas of male and female as being opposites, even going as far as to claim toys which have characteristics of both genders are preferable.]
A milestone for research on gender is the use of meta-analysis
A meta-analysis is a statistical analysis that combines the results of multiple scientific studies. Meta-analyses can be performed when there are multiple scientific studies addressing the same question, with each individual study reporting me ...
, which provides a way to assess patterns in a systematic way, especially relevant for a topic such as gender, which can be difficult to quantify.[ Nature and nurture have historically been analyzed when looking at gender in play, as well as reinforcement by peers and parents of typical ]gender role
A gender role, also known as a sex role, is a social role encompassing a range of behaviors and attitudes that are generally considered acceptable, appropriate, or desirable for a person based on that person's sex. Gender roles are usually cent ...
s and consequently, gender play.[ Toy companies have often promoted the segregation by gender in toys because it enables them to customize the same toy for each gender, which ultimately doubles their revenue. For example, Legos added more colors to certain sets of toys in the 1990s, including colors commonly attributed to girls such as lavender.
It has been noted by researchers that, "Children as young as 18 months display sex-stereotyped toy choices".] When eye movement is tracked in young infants, infant girls show a visual preference for a doll over a toy truck (d > 1.0). Boys showed no preference for the truck over the doll. However, they did fixate on the truck more than the girls (d = .78). This small study suggests that even before any self-awareness of gender identity has emerged, children already prefer sex-typical toys. These differences in toy choice are well established within the child by the age of three.
Another study done by Jeffrey Trawick-Smith took 60 different children ages three to four and observed them playing with nine different toys deemed best for development. They were allowed to play with the toys in a typical environment, a preschool classroom, which allowed for the results to be more authentic compared to research done in a lab. The researchers then quantified play quality of the children with each toy based on factors such as learning, problem solving, curiosity, creativity, imagination, and peer interaction. The results revealed that boys generally received higher scores for overall play quality than girls, and the toys with the best play quality were those identified as the most gender neutral, such as building blocks and bricks along with pieces modeling people. Trawick-Smith then concluded that the study encourages a focus on toys which are beneficial to both genders in order to create a better balance.
While some parents promote gender neutral play, many parents encourage their children to participate in sex-typed activities, including doll-playing and engaging in housekeeping activities for girls and playing with trucks and engaging in sports activities for boys. Researcher Susan Witt said that parents are the primary influencer on the gender roles of their children. Parents, siblings, peers, and even teachers have been shown to react more positively to children engaging in sex-typical behavior and playing with sex-typical toys. This is often done through encouragement or discouragement, as well as suggestions[ and imitation. Additionally, sons are more likely to be reinforced for sex-typical play and discouraged from atypical play.] However, it is generally not as looked down upon for girls to play with toys designed "for boys", an activity which has also become more common in recent years. Fathers are also more likely to reinforce typical play and discourage atypical play than mothers are. A study done by researcher Susan Witt suggests that stereotypes are oftentimes only strengthened by the environment, which perpetuates them to linger in older life.[
This stereotypical attribution of sex-typical toys for girls and boys is gradually changing, with toys companies creating more gender neutral toys, as the benefits associated with allowing children to play with toys that appeal to them far outweighs controlling their individual preferences. For example, many stores are beginning to change their gender labels on children's play items. Target removed all identification related to gender from their toy aisles and Disney did the same for their costumes.] The Disney store is an especially prevalent example of gender in play because they are a global identity in the toy world. A study done regarding their website found that though they have removed gender labels from their costumes, the toys online reflect more stereotypical gender identities. For example, toys depicting males were associated with physicality and females were associated with beauty, housing, and caring. Though Disney promotes their toys as being for both genders, there is no gender neutral section on their website. Those which are generally deemed for both genders more closely resemble what many would label "boy toys," as they relate closer to the stereotype of masculinity within play.
Traditions within various cultures promote the passing down of certain toys to their children based on the child's gender. In Indigenous South American communities, boys receive a toy bow and arrow from their father while young girls receive a toy basket from their mother. In North African and Saharan cultural communities, gender plays a role in the creation of self-made dolls. While female dolls are used to represent brides, mothers, and wives, male dolls are used to represent horsemen and warriors. This contrast stems from the various roles of men and women within the Saharan and North African communities. There are differences in the toys that are intended for girls and boys within various cultures, which is reflective of the differing roles of men and women within a specific cultural community.
Research on the repercussions of gender in toys suggests that desegregation of the genders can be achieved by encouraging more gender-neutral play. Researchers Carol Auster and Claire Mansbach have argued that allowing children to play with toys which more closely fit their talents would help them to better develop their skills. In terms of parental influence, a study found that parents who demonstrated some androgynous behavior have higher scores in support, warmth, and self-worth in regards to the treatment of their children.[ Even as this debate is evolving and children are becoming more inclined to cross barriers in terms of gender with their toys, girls are typically more encouraged to do so than boys because of the societal value of masculinity.][
]
Economics
With toys comprising such a large and important part of human existence, the toy industry has a substantial economic impact. Sales of toys often increase around holidays where gift-giving is a tradition. Some of these holidays include Christmas, Easter, Saint Nicholas Day
Saint Nicholas Day, also called the Feast of Saint Nicholas, observed on 5 December or on 6 December in Western Christian countries, and on 19 December in Eastern Christian countries using the old church Calendar, is the feast day of Saint Ni ...
, and Three Kings Day
Epiphany ( ), also known as Theophany in Eastern Christian traditions, is a Christian feast day that celebrates the revelation ( theophany) of God incarnate as Jesus Christ.
In Western Christianity, the feast commemorates principally (but not ...
.
In 2005, toy sales in the United States totaled about $22.9 billion. Money spent on children between the ages of 8 and twelve alone totals approximately $221 million annually in the U.S. It was estimated that in 2011, 88% of toy sales was in the age group 0–11 years.
Toy companies change and adapt their toys to meet the changing demands of children thereby gaining a larger share of the substantial market. In recent years many toys have become more complicated with flashing lights and sounds in an effort to appeal to children raised around television and the internet. According to Mattel's president, Neil Friedman, "Innovation is key in the toy industry and to succeed one must create a 'wow' moment for kids by designing toys that have fun, innovative features and include new technologies and engaging content."
In an effort to reduce costs, many mass-producers of toys locate their factories in areas where wages are lower. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world's toys and is home to more than 8,000 toy firms, most of which are located in the Pearl River Delta of Guangdong Province. 75% of all toys sold in the U.S., for example, are manufactured in China.[ Issues and events such as power outages, supply of raw materials, supply of labor, and raising wages that impact areas where factories are located often have an enormous impact on the toy industry in importing countries.
Many traditional toy makers have been losing sales to ]video game
Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...
makers for years. Because of this, some traditional toy makers have entered the field of electronic games and have even been turning audio games into toys, and are enhancing the brands that they have by introducing interactive extensions or internet connectivity to their current toys.
In addition, the rise of distributed manufacturing enables consumers to make their own toys from open source designs with a 3-D printer
3D printing or additive manufacturing is the Manufacturing, construction of a three-dimensional object from a computer-aided design, CAD model or a digital 3D modeling, 3D model. It can be done in a variety of processes in which material is ...
. As of 2017 consumers were already offsetting millions of dollars per year by 3D printing
3D printing or additive manufacturing is the construction of a three-dimensional object from a CAD model or a digital 3D model. It can be done in a variety of processes in which material is deposited, joined or solidified under computer co ...
their own toys from MyMiniFactory, a single repository.
Types
Construction sets
The Greek philosopher Plato
Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...
wrote that the future architect
An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...
should play at building houses as a child.[Karl Hils, ''The Toy – Its Value, Construction and Use'', Edmund Ward Ltd., London, 1959.] A construction set
A construction set is a set of standardized pieces that allow for the construction of a variety of different models. The pieces avoid the lead-time of manufacturing custom pieces, and of requiring special training or design time to constr ...
is a collection of separate pieces that can be joined to create models. Popular models include cars, spaceships, and houses. The things that are built are sometimes used as toys once completed, but generally speaking, the object is to build things of one's own design, and old models often are broken up with the pieces reused in new models.
The oldest and perhaps most common construction toy is a set of simple wooden blocks, which are often painted in bright colors and given to babies and toddlers. Construction sets such as Lego bricks and Lincoln Logs are designed for slightly older children and have been quite popular in the last century.
Construction sets appeal to children (and adults) who like to work with their hands, puzzle solvers, and imaginative sorts.
Some other examples include Bayko, Konstruk-Tubes, K'Nex
K'Nex is a construction toy system founded by Joel Glickman. It was first introduced in America in 1992. K'Nex is designed and produced by K'Nex Industries Inc. of Hatfield, Pennsylvania.
K'Nex was purchased by Florida-based company Basic Fun ...
, Erector Set
Erector Set (trademark styled as "ERECTOR") was a brand of metal toy construction sets which were originally patented by Alfred Carlton Gilbert and first sold by his company, the Mysto Manufacturing Company of New Haven, Connecticut in 1913. In ...
s, Tinkertoy
The Tinkertoy Construction Set is a toy construction set for children. It was designed in 1914—six years after the Frank Hornby's Meccano sets—by Charles H. Pajeau, who formed the Toy Tinker Company in Evanston, Illinois to manufactu ...
s, and Meccano
Meccano is a brand of model construction system created in 1898 by Frank Hornby in Liverpool, England. The system consists of reusable metal strips, plates, angle girders, wheels, axles and gears, and plastic parts that are connected using nut ...
, and generic construction toys such as Neodymium magnet toys.
Dolls and miniatures
A doll
A doll is a model typically of a human or humanoid character, often used as a toy for children. Dolls have also been used in traditional religious rituals throughout the world. Traditional dolls made of materials such as clay and wood are foun ...
is a model of a human (often a baby), a humanoid (like Bert and Ernie
Bert and Ernie are two Muppet characters who appear together in numerous skits on the long-running PBS/HBO children's television show, ''Sesame Street''. Originated by Frank Oz and Jim Henson, the characters are currently performed by puppeteer ...
), or an animal. Modern dolls are often made of cloth or plastic. Other materials that are, or have been, used in the manufacture of dolls include cornhusks, bone
A bone is a Stiffness, rigid Organ (biology), organ that constitutes part of the skeleton in most vertebrate animals. Bones protect the various other organs of the body, produce red blood cell, red and white blood cells, store minerals, provid ...
, stone
In geology, rock (or stone) is any naturally occurring solid mass or aggregate of minerals or mineraloid matter. It is categorized by the minerals included, its Chemical compound, chemical composition, and the way in which it is formed. Rocks ...
, wood, porcelain
Porcelain () is a ceramic material made by heating substances, generally including materials such as kaolinite, in a kiln to temperatures between . The strength and translucence of porcelain, relative to other types of pottery, arises main ...
(sometimes called china), bisque, celluloid
Celluloids are a class of materials produced by mixing nitrocellulose and camphor, often with added dyes and other agents. Once much more common for its use as photographic film before the advent of safer methods, celluloid's common contemporar ...
, wax
Waxes are a diverse class of organic compounds that are lipophilic, malleable solids near ambient temperatures. They include higher alkanes and lipids, typically with melting points above about 40 °C (104 °F), melting to giv ...
, and even apples. Often, people will make dolls out of whatever materials are available to them.
Sometimes intended as decorations, keepsakes, or collectible
A collectable (collectible or collector's item) is any object regarded as being of value or interest to a collector. Collectable items are not necessarily monetarily valuable or uncommon. There are numerous types of collectables and terms t ...
s for older children and adults, most dolls are intended as toys for children, usually girls, to play with. Dolls have been found in Egyptian tombs that date to as early as 2000 BCE.
Dolls are usually miniatures, but baby dolls may be of true size and weight. A doll or stuffed animal
A stuffed toy is a toy doll with an outer fabric sewn from a textile and stuffed with flexible material. They are known by many names, such as plush toys, plushies, stuffed animals, and stuffies; in Britain and Australia, they may also be cal ...
of soft material is sometimes called a plush toy
A stuffed toy is a toy doll with an outer fabric sewn from a textile and stuffed with flexible material. They are known by many names, such as plush toys, plushies, stuffed animals, and stuffies; in Britain and Australia, they may also be cal ...
or plushie
A stuffed toy is a toy doll with an outer fabric sewn from a textile and stuffed with flexible material. They are known by many names, such as plush toys, plushies, stuffed animals, and stuffies; in Britain and Australia, they may also be cal ...
. A popular toy of this type is the Teddy Bear
A teddy bear is a stuffed toy in the form of a bear. Developed apparently simultaneously by toymakers Morris Michtom in the U.S. and Richard Steiff under his aunt Margarete Steiff's company in Germany in the early 20th century, the teddy bear, ...
.
A distinction is often made between dolls and action figure
An action figure is a poseable character (arts), character model figure made most commonly of plastic, and often based upon characters from a film, comic book, military, video game or television program; fictional or historical. These figures are ...
s, which are generally of plastic or semi-metallic construction and poseable to some extent, and often are merchandising from television shows or films which feature the characters. Modern action figures, such as Action Man, are often marketed towards boys, whereas dolls are often marketed towards girls.
Toy soldiers
A toy soldier is a miniature figurine that represents a soldier. The term applies to depictions of uniformed military personnel from all eras, and includes knights, cowboys, American Indians, pirates, samurai, and other subjects that involve ...
, perhaps a precursor to modern action figures
An action figure is a poseable character model figure made most commonly of plastic, and often based upon characters from a film, comic book, military, video game or television program; fictional or historical. These figures are usually market ...
, have been a popular toy for centuries. They allow children to act out battles, often with toy military equipment and a castle or fort. Miniature animal figures are also widespread, with children perhaps acting out farm activities with animals and equipment centered on a toy farm.
Vehicles
Children have played with miniature versions of vehicles since ancient times, with toy two-wheeled cart
A cart or dray (Australia and New Zealand) is a vehicle designed for transport, using two wheels and normally pulled by one or a pair of draught animals. A handcart is pulled or pushed by one or more people.
It is different from the flatbed tr ...
s being depicted on ancient Greek vases.[ ]Wind-up toy
A wind-up toy is an automaton toy powered by a clockwork motor.
Background
Automata built for the sake of art, amusement, and simulation have been described since antiquity, in cases such as Heron of Alexandria designing clockwork birds during ...
s have also played a part in the advancement of toy vehicles. Modern equivalents include toy cars
A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods.
The year 1886 is regarded as t ...
such as those produced by Matchbox
Phillumeny (also known as phillumenism) is the hobby of collecting different match-related items: matchboxes, matchbox labels, matchbooks, matchcovers, matchsafes, etc.
Matchbox
A matchbox is a box made of cardboard or thin wood and designe ...
or Hot Wheels
Hot Wheels is an American brand of scale model cars introduced by American toymaker Mattel in 1968. It was the primary competitor of Matchbox until 1997, when Mattel bought Tyco Toys, then owner of Matchbox.
Many automobile manufacturers have ...
, miniature aircraft, toy boats, military vehicle
A military vehicle is any vehicle for land-based military transport and activity, including combat vehicles; both specifically designed for, or significantly used by military and armed forces. Most military vehicles require off-road capabiliti ...
s, and trains
In rail transport, a train (from Old French , from Latin , "to pull, to draw") is a series of connected vehicles that run along a railway track and transport people or freight. Trains are typically pulled or pushed by locomotives (often know ...
. Examples of the latter range from wooden sets for younger children such as BRIO to more complicated realistic train models like those produced by Lionel, Doepke and Hornby
Hornby may refer to:
Places In England
* Hornby, Lancashire
* Hornby, Hambleton, village in North Yorkshire
* Hornby, Richmondshire, village in North Yorkshire Elsewhere
* Hornby, Ontario, community in the town of Halton Hills, Ontario, Canad ...
. Larger die-cast vehicles, 1:18 scale, have become popular toys; these vehicles are produced with a great attention to detail.
Puzzles
A puzzle is a problem or enigma that challenges ingenuity. Solutions to puzzles may require recognizing pattern
A pattern is a regularity in the world, in human-made design, or in abstract ideas. As such, the elements of a pattern repeat in a predictable manner. A geometric pattern is a kind of pattern formed of geometric shapes and typically repeated l ...
s and creating a particular order. People with a high inductive reasoning aptitude
Inductive reasoning aptitude (also called differentiation or inductive learning ability) measures how well a person can identify a pattern within a large amount of data. It involves applying the rules of logic when inferring general principles fr ...
may be better at solving these puzzles than others. Puzzles based on the process of inquiry and discovery to complete may be solved faster by those with good deduction skills. A popular puzzle toy is the Rubik's Cube, invented by Hungarian Ernő Rubik
Ernő Rubik (; born 13 July 1944) commonly known by his nickname, "Little Man", is a Hungarian inventor, architect and professor of architecture. He is best known for the invention of mechanical puzzles including the Rubik's Cube (1974), Rubi ...
in 1974. Popularized in the 1980s, solving the cube requires planning and problem-solving skills and involves algorithms.
There are many different types of puzzles; for example, a maze
A maze is a path or collection of paths, typically from an entrance to a goal. The word is used to refer both to branching tour puzzles through which the solver must find a route, and to simpler non-branching ("unicursal") patterns that lea ...
is a type of tour puzzle
A tour puzzle is a puzzle in which the player travels around a board (usually but not necessarily two-dimensional) using a token which represents a character. Maze puzzles are often of this type.
Sometimes the player has more than one token with ...
. Other categories include: construction puzzle
In a construction puzzle you have to build (assemble) a technical contraption. This may be a static object (such as a bridge) or a mechanical object (like a machine).
In a wider sense a construction puzzle is any puzzle where you have to assemb ...
s, stick puzzle
Stick puzzles are a type of combination puzzle that uses multiple sticks or 'polysticks' (which can be one-dimensional objects) to assemble two- or three-dimensional configurations.
Polysticks are configurations of joined or unjoined thin (ideall ...
s, tiling puzzle
Tiling puzzles are puzzles involving two-dimensional packing problems in which a number of flat shapes have to be assembled into a larger given shape without overlaps (and often without gaps). Some tiling puzzles ask you to dissect a given ...
s, disentanglement puzzle
Disentanglement puzzles (also called entanglement puzzles, tanglement puzzles, tavern puzzles or topological puzzles) are a type or group of mechanical puzzle that involves disentangling one piece or set of pieces from another piece or set of piec ...
s, sliding puzzle
A sliding puzzle, sliding block puzzle, or sliding tile puzzle is a combination puzzle that challenges a player to slide (frequently flat) pieces along certain routes (usually on a board) to establish a certain end-configuration. The pieces to ...
s, logic puzzle
A logic puzzle is a puzzle deriving from the mathematics, mathematical field of deductive reasoning, deduction.
History
The logic puzzle was first produced by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, who is better known under his pen name Lewis Carroll, the au ...
s, picture puzzles, lock puzzle
A puzzle lock or puzzle padlock is a type of mechanical puzzle. It consists of a lock with unusual or hidden mechanics. Puzzle locks are reconfigurable mechanisms where the topological structure changes during the operation. Such locks are someti ...
s, and mechanical puzzle
A mechanical puzzle is a puzzle presented as a set of mechanically interlinked pieces in which the solution is to manipulate the whole object or parts of it. While puzzles of this type have been in use by humanity as early as the 3rd century BC ...
s.
Collectibles
Some toys, such as Beanie Babies
Beanie Babies are a line of stuffed toys created by American businessman H. Ty Warner, who founded Ty Inc. in 1986. The toys are stuffed with plastic pellets ("beans") rather than conventional soft stuffing. They come in many different forms, ...
, attract large numbers of enthusiasts, eventually becoming collectible
A collectable (collectible or collector's item) is any object regarded as being of value or interest to a collector. Collectable items are not necessarily monetarily valuable or uncommon. There are numerous types of collectables and terms t ...
s. Other toys, such as Boyds Bears are marketed to adults as collectibles. Some people spend large sums of money in an effort to acquire larger and more complete collections. The record for a single Pez dispenser
Pez (, ; stylised as PEZ) is the brand name of an Austrian candy and associated manual candy dispensers. The candy is a pressed, dry, straight-edged, curved-corner block 15 mm ( inch) long, 8 mm ( inch) wide and 5 mm ...
at an auction, for example, is US$1100.
Promotional merchandise
Many successful films, television programs, books and sport teams have official merchandise, which often includes related toys. Some notable examples are ''Star Wars
''Star Wars'' is an American epic film, epic space opera multimedia franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the Star Wars (film), eponymous 1977 film and quickly became a worldwide popular culture, pop-culture Cultural impact of S ...
'' (a space fantasy franchise) and Arsenal
An arsenal is a place where arms and ammunition are made, maintained and repaired, stored, or issued, in any combination, whether privately or publicly owned. Arsenal and armoury (British English) or armory (American English) are mostly ...
, an English football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
club.
Likewise, many successful children's films, television series, books or franchises extend their marketing campaign to fast food
Fast food is a type of mass-produced food designed for commercial resale, with a strong priority placed on speed of service. It is a commercial term, limited to food sold in a restaurant or store with frozen, preheated or precooked ingredien ...
chains by including small toys of fictional characters or the series' associated symbols in a sealed plastic bag within their kids' meal
The kids' meal or children's meal is a fast food combination meal tailored to and marketed to children. Most kids' meals come in colorful bags or cardboard boxes with depictions of activities/games on the bag or box and a toy inside. Most sta ...
s. One famous example is the Happy Meal
A Happy Meal is a kids' meal usually sold at the American fast food restaurant chain McDonald's since June 1979. A small toy or book is included with the food, both of which are usually contained in a red cardboard box with a yellow smiley face ...
from McDonald's
McDonald's Corporation is an American Multinational corporation, multinational fast food chain store, chain, founded in 1940 as a restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald, in San Bernardino, California, United States. They rechri ...
.
Promotional toys can fall into any of the other toy categories; for example, they can be dolls or action figures based on the characters of movies or professional athletes, or they can be balls, yo-yos, or lunch box
A lunch box (alt. spelling lunchbox) refers to a hand-held container used to transport food, usually to work or to school. It is commonly made of metal or plastic, is reasonably airtight and often has a handle for carrying.
In the United ...
es with logos on them. Sometimes they are given away for free as a form of advertising. Model aircraft
A model aircraft is a small unmanned aircraft. Many are replicas of real aircraft. Model aircraft are divided into two basic groups: flying and non-flying. Non-flying models are also termed static, display, or shelf models.
Aircraft manufactur ...
are often toys that are used by airlines to promote their brand, just as toy cars and trucks
A toy or plaything is an object that is used primarily to provide entertainment. Simple examples include toy blocks, board games, and dolls. Toys are often designed for use by children, although many are designed specifically for adults and pet ...
and model train
Railway modelling (UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland) or model railroading (US and Canada) is a hobby in which rail transport systems are modelled at a reduced scale.
The scale models include locomotives, rolling stock, streetcars, t ...
s are used by trucking, railroad and other companies as well. Many food manufacturers run promotions where a toy is included with the main product as a prize
A prize is an award to be given to a person or a group of people (such as sporting teams and organizations) to recognize and reward their actions and achievements. . Toys are also used as premiums, where consumers redeem proofs of purchase from a product and pay shipping and handling fees to get the toy. Some people go to great lengths to collect these sorts of promotional toys.
Digital toys
Digital toys are toys that incorporate some form of interactive digital technology. Examples of digital toys include virtual pets
A virtual pet (also known as a digital pet, artificial pet, or pet-raising simulation) is a type of artificial human companion. They are usually kept for companionship or enjoyment. People may keep a digital pet in lieu of a real pet.
Digital ...
and handheld electronic games
Handheld electronic games are very small, portable devices for playing interactive electronic games, often miniaturized versions of video games. The controls, display and speakers are all part of a single unit. Rather than a general-purpose s ...
. Among the earliest digital toys are Mattel Auto Race
''Mattel Electronics Auto Race'' is the first in the line of many Mattel Electronics games, and it is credited with being the first handheld game that was entirely digital, with only solid-state electronics, having no moving mechanisms except ...
and the Little Professor, both released in 1976. The concept of using technology in a way that bridges the digital with the physical world, providing unique interactive experiences for the user, has also been referred to as ''phygital
The term immersion marketing or immersive marketing includes traditional advertising, public relations, word-of-mouth advertising, digital marketing, samples, coupons, retail partnerships and other ways of surrounding the consumer with a consis ...
''.
Physical activity
A large amount of toys are part of active play. These include traditional toys such as hoops
Hoop or Hoops may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Film and television
* Hoops (TV series), ''Hoops'' (TV series), an American animated series
Music
* Hoops (band), an American indie pop band
* Hoops (album), ''Hoops'' (album), a 2015 albu ...
, top
A spinning top, or simply a top, is a toy with a squat body and a sharp point at the bottom, designed to be spun on its vertical axis, balancing on the tip due to the gyroscopic effect.
Once set in motion, a top will usually wobble for a few ...
s, jump rope
A skipping rope (British English) or jump rope (American English) is a tool used in the sport of skipping/jump rope where one or more participants jump over a rope swung so that it passes under their feet and over their heads. There are multi ...
s, and balls, as well as more modern toys like Frisbee
A frisbee (pronounced ), also called a flying disc or simply a disc, is a gliding toy or sporting item that is generally made of injection-molded plastic and roughly in diameter with a pronounced lip. It is used recreationally and competitive ...
s, foot bag
A footbag is a small, round bag usually filled with plastic pellets or sand, which is kicked into the air as part of a competitive game or as a display of dexterity. "Hacky Sack" is the name of a brand of footbag popular in the 1970s (currently o ...
s, fidget toy
A fidget spinner
A fidget toy is typically a small object used for pleasant but purposeless activity with the hands (manual fidgeting or stimming). Some users believe these toys help them tolerate anxiety, frustration, agitation, boredom, and ...
s, astrojax
Astrojax, invented in 1986 by Larry Shaw, is a toy consisting of three balls on a string. One ball is fixed at each end of the string, and the center ball is free to slide along the string between the two end balls. Inside each ball is a metal ...
, and Myachi
A hand sack is any sack or similar object, typically made of cloth and filled with sand or a similar material, that is tossed on the back of the hand for the purpose of mastering tricks or playing games.
Origin
Tossing and catching (or striking) ...
.
Playing with these sorts of toys allows children to exercise, building strong bones and muscles and aiding in physical fitness
Physical fitness is a state of health and well-being and, more specifically, the ability to perform aspects of Outline of sports, sports, occupations and daily activities. Physical fitness is generally achieved through proper nutrition, moderate ...
. Throwing and catching balls and Frisbees can improve hand–eye coordination. Jumping rope, (also known as skipping) and playing with foot bags can improve balance.
Safety regulations
Many countries have passed safety standards
Safety standards are standards designed to ensure the safety of products, activities and processes, etc. They may be advisory or compulsory and are normally laid down by an advisory or regulatory body that may be either voluntary or statutory. In ...
limiting the types of toys that can be sold. Most of these seek to limit potential hazards, such as choking
Choking, also known as foreign body airway obstruction (FBAO), is a phenomenon that occurs when breathing is impeded by a blockage inside of the respiratory tract. An obstruction that prevents oxygen from entering the lungs results in oxygen de ...
or fire hazard
Fire safety is the set of practices intended to reduce the destruction caused by fire. Fire safety measures include those that are intended to prevent the ignition of an uncontrolled fire and those that are used to limit the development and ef ...
s that could cause injury. Children, especially very small ones, often put toys into their mouths, so the materials used to make a toy are regulated to prevent poisoning. Materials are also regulated to prevent fire hazards. Young children cannot judge what is safe and what is dangerous, and parents do not always think of all possible situations, so such warnings and regulations are important on toys.
Every country has its own regulations on toy safety, but since the globalization
Globalization, or globalisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is the process of interaction and integration among people, companies, and governments worldwide. The term ''globalization'' first appeared in the early 20t ...
and opening of markets, most of them try to harmonize their regulations. The most common danger for younger children is to put toys in their mouths. This is why chemicals contained in paint and other components of children's products are carefully regulated. Countries or trade zones such as the European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...
regularly publish lists to regulate the quantities or ban chemicals from toys and juvenile products. The globalization of toys has had negative effects on locally-produced toys in various countries, pushing out traditional ways of play and presenting new risks to children in areas where parental literacy
Literacy in its broadest sense describes "particular ways of thinking about and doing reading and writing" with the purpose of understanding or expressing thoughts or ideas in written form in some specific context of use. In other words, huma ...
levels make it hard for parents to understand the risks and age-appropriateness of various imported toys.
There have also been issues of toy safety regarding lead paint
Lead paint or lead-based paint is paint containing lead. As pigment, lead(II) chromate (, "chrome yellow"), lead(II,IV) oxide, (, "red lead"), and lead(II) carbonate (, "white lead") are the most common forms.. Lead is added to paint to acceler ...
. Some toy factories, when projects become too large for them to handle, outsource production to other less known factories, often in other countries. Recently, there were some in China that America had to send back. The subcontractors may not be watched as closely and sometimes use improper manufacturing methods. The U.S. government, along with mass market stores, is now moving towards requiring companies to submit their products to testing before they end up on shelves.
Disposal
When toys have been outgrown or are no longer wanted, they may be donated to charity, sold at garage sale
A garage sale (also known as a yard sale, tag sale, moving sale and by many other namesSome rarely used names include "attic sale," "basement sale," "rummage sale," "thrift sale," "patio sale," "lawn sale," and "jumble sale".) is an informal ...
s, auction
An auction is usually a process of buying and selling goods or services by offering them up for bids, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder or buying the item from the lowest bidder. Some exceptions to this definition ex ...
ed, or even donated to museums. However, when toys are broken, worn out or otherwise unfit for use, care should be taken when disposing of them. Donated or resold toys should be gently used, clean and have all parts. Before disposal of any battery-operated toy, batteries are removed and recycled; some communities demand this be done. Some manufacturers, such as Little Tikes
Little Tikes is an American manufacturer of children's toys, with headquarters and manufacturing located in Hudson, Ohio. The company also has other manufacturing and distribution facilities in Asia and Europe. Little Tikes' products are mostly l ...
, will take back and recycle their products.
In 2007, massive recalls of toys produced in China led many U.S.-based charities to cut back on, or even discontinue, their acceptance of used toys. Goodwill stopped accepting donations of any toys except for stuffed animals, and other charities checked all toys against government-issued checklists.
The WEEE directive (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment), which aims at increasing re-using, reducing, and recycling electronic waste, applies to toys in the United Kingdom as of 2 January 2007.
Toy use in animals
It is not unusual for some animals to play with toys. An example of this is a dolphin being trained to nudge a ball through a hoop. Young chimpanzees use sticks as dolls–the social aspect is seen by the fact that young females more often use a stick this way than young male chimpanzees. They carry their chosen stick and put it in their nest. Such behaviour is also seen in some adult female chimpanzees, but never after they have become mothers.
See also
* Antique toy show An Antique toy show is one of several toy shows held throughout the United States (and around the world), usually on an annual basis, that is devoted to the exhibition, for sale, of antique toys, dolls and collectible
A collectable (collect ...
* Boys' games and toys
* Battery recycling
Battery recycling is a recycling activity that aims to reduce the number of batteries being disposed as municipal solid waste. Batteries contain a number of heavy metals and toxic chemicals and disposing of them by the same process as regular ...
* Board game
Board games are tabletop games that typically use . These pieces are moved or placed on a pre-marked board (playing surface) and often include elements of table, card, role-playing, and miniatures games as well.
Many board games feature a comp ...
s
* Card games
A card game is any game using playing cards as the primary device with which the game is played, be they traditional or game-specific.
Countless card games exist, including families of related games (such as poker). A small number of card ga ...
* Girls' games and toys
Girls' toys and games are toys and games specifically target market, targeted at girls by the toy industry. They may be traditionally associated either exclusively or primarily with girls by adults and used by girls as an expression of identity ...
* List of toys
This article is a list of toys; the toys included are both widely popular (either currently or historically) and provide illustrative examples of specific types of toys.
Action figures
* Army men
* B-Daman
* Digital pet
* Evel Knievel Action ...
* List of toys and children's media awards
This list of toys and children's media awards is an index to articles about notable awards related to toys and other products such as books and videos for children.
See also
* Lists of awards
* List of media awards
* List of comics awards
* ...
* List of wooden toys
* National Toy Hall of Fame
The National Toy Hall of Fame is a U.S. hall of fame that recognizes the contributions of toys and games that have sustained their popularity for many years. Criteria for induction include: icon status (the toy is widely recognized, respected, an ...
(United States)
* Toy museums
A toy museum is a museum for toys. They typically showcase toys from a particular culture or period with their history. These are distinct from children's museums, which are museums for children, and are often interactive – toy museums may b ...
* ''Toy Story'', a franchise about anthropomorphic toys
* Traditional Mexican handcrafted toys
Traditional Mexican handcrafted toys are those made by artisans rather than manufactured in factories. The history of Mexican toys extends as far back as the Mesoamerican era, but many of the toys date to the colonial period. Many of these were in ...
References
Further reading
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External links
*
The Toys of our Childhood
', online exhibit on Archives of Ontario website
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Play (activity)