The modern development of scientific and educational toys
In the 2015 International Toy Fair in Nuremberg, Germany and the International Toy Fair in New York, USA, it can be understood that international scientific and educational toys are gradually emerging, and scientific and education toys are being focused by the toy industry, which has therefore triggered more and more attention.
Among them, STEAM toys have stood out among many toy categories since 2017, which integrate education, design, interdisciplinary, play, materials and other innovations to inspire children’s unlimited creativity. Nowadays, scientific and educational toys have become a windfall of opportunity and development, attracting the attention of international toy companies and the new development layout of many international technology companies.
According to the “2022-2027 Edition of the Toy Industry Mergers and Acquisitions Opportunities Research and Decision Advisory Report”, we can learn that the United States is the world’s largest toy consumer, accounting for 28.15% of the global retail sales of toys, and the UK toy market accounts for 4.82% of the global retail sales of toys, the largest toy consumer in Europe.
At present, Europe and the United States is still the world’s largest toy consumer market, while China, as a large toy producing country with a large number of toy manufacturing enterprises, is the main concentration of global toy production and the world’s largest toy exporter. In other words, China is one of the toy suppliers around the world, supplying more than 75% of the world toy market, and has formed a perfect toy industry chain support, occupying a very important position in the toy market.
Dual analysis of the scientific and educational toy market environment
From a macro point of view, in today’s social environment, education under the Internet tends to diversify, more and more new technologies are used by various enterprises in a variety of products to form many new combinations of products, at the same time, consumers are also willing to pay for the power of technology, and education as an important part of society, to a large extent, will also affect and determine the development of a certain industry The toy industry is especially obvious, today’s Internet diversified content makes toys in the intelligent, interactive, educational and other aspects have excellent results, intelligent science and education toys have become a new generation of consumers’ consumption direction.
The increasing proportion of intelligent science and education toys in the overall industry structure is conducive to the development of the toy industry to a high level and healthy direction, and also has a profound impact on the educational significance of children.
From a microscopic point of view, the rising average international education level and more modern consumption concepts are implicitly influencing people’s consumption patterns and habits, prompting people to pay more attention to the enlightenment of infants and young children. People in the purchase of toys will also take more into account the educational and entertainment needs of a variety of products. As quality education continues to grow, schools are actively exploring environments that support individualized learning needs and enrich the practical and experiential nature of teaching.
In addition, after technology, intelligence, and fun and education are put into toys, children’s desire to explore various knowledge and curiosity will be developed and explored in different types of science education toys, which is significant for children’s long-term education, so parents are more and more willing to spend for such scientific and educational toys, which will make the consumption space of intelligent scientific and educational toys further expand.
Channels for retailers and suppliers of scientific and educational toys
Scientific and educational toys are both toys and teaching aids, and scientific and educational toys’ products focus on children’s participation, rather than force-feeding knowledge to children. Toys n Playthings interviewed three of the UK’s leading domestic science-based toy vendors, Interplay, Great Gizmos and Thames & Kosmos, about retailer stocking strategies for science-based toy products, and it was mentioned that retailers should give science-based toys enough display and showcase space to allow The suppliers should focus on multi-channel development when controlling the production and processing of scientific and educational toys.
Therefore, we can deduce that the supply channel of scientific and educational toys has both popular and educational channels. Now the mass channel is most of the supply enterprises are layout, when the modern technology enterprises into the scientific and educational toy market, they will focus on the research and development of C-end scientific and educational toys products field, and in various forms.
But in fact, the product itself does not need to invest in very complex and esoteric technology content, which will make children feel that the knowledge of science and technology obscure and difficult to understand, and will lead them to think that learning these Knowledge is full of difficulties, but should be able to make children actively involved in natural science activities, and feel the magic of nature, the scientific knowledge into the process of play, so that children unconsciously remember the knowledge, and actively use, these are the greatest appeal of the product.
The teaching methods adopted by educational toys must be simple, beneficial to learning, and able to maintain the child’s interest. Whether the product has flashing lights, microphones, touch screens and other flashy gimmicks, or just a simple flat picture, everything is relevant to the child’s development.
The educational channel is the very counterpart supply and sales channel for scientific and educational toys. According to the media reports of the toy industry, the sales volume of scientific and educational toys in the mass channel and the educational channel is about 3:7, that similarly, in the case of the supply volume is generally positively correlated with the sales volume, whether it is the mass channel or the educational channel, toys that can make children enjoy and gain knowledge of science, technology, engineering, mathematics and art in the play, and can make parents take the initiative to buy products are really suitable for the market demand of scientific and educational products.
For most suppliers, they supply products in the mass channel mainly in sets, in the educational channel, in addition to sets, will also provide student books, teacher books and regular teacher training and live training to help teachers and students better carry out the experiments in the sets, and even in many well-known international supermarkets on the official toy website, have begun to launch the relevant educational knowledge of the toy video in order to provide learning for children.
In the toy industry, especially in scientific and educational toys, many suppliers are embracing e-commerce distribution channels to increase market profits, as we know Amazon platform is one of the most famous suppliers in the online retail sector, and we can also understand that most suppliers are focusing on the content development of toys, giving toys with scientific and technological content support, such as Bluetooth, AI, AR, cloud, etc.
For technology companies, most of the technical aspects can be guaranteed, however, it is very important and worth noting that the educational attributes of scientific and educational toys are not simply superimposed knowledge in the product, but to consider how to integrate knowledge into the product at the design and development stage, so that children can learn during the process of playing.
The development direction of scientific and education toy suppliers
Early education of infants and toddlers is closely related to the future development of children. In scientific and educational toys, suppliers need to fully consider whether the toys have the ability to enlighten children’s abilities and intelligence, and also have the function of helping children to develop good learning habits. In addition, we should also consider whether teachers can fully utilize the functions of scientific toys as teaching aids to improve teaching efficiency so that children can achieve better and higher quality development under the subtle influence of scientidfic toys.
- Low-age
In China, for example, the current domestic market acceptance of the STEAM concept, mainly focused on programming enlightenment, creative education and other levels, the age of the product is mainly K12. But from the international trend, the development of scientific and educational toys for children is becoming the focus of innovation and development of major brands.
- Girl groups can be the direction of breakthrough
Influenced by the inherent concept that men are suitable for science subjects, people generally believe that STEAM toys in scientific and educational toys are more suitable for boys to play, thus taking the boys group as an important target group and ignoring the demand of girls group for such toys. Toy brands can seize this market gap and develop STEAM toys suitable for girls to stimulate their talents in science, engineering and technology.
- Develop art-based STEAM toys
For science toys, the future development should not be limited to the programming direction either. With the trend of increasing emphasis on comprehensive quality, art (A) class toys are likely to become the next growth point in the field of scientific and educational toys. In the process of aesthetic education, the transition from a single discipline to integrated interdisciplinary learning allows children to be creative through artistic thinking.
scientific and educational toys is thoroughly important for children
- Build confidence and self-confidence
Science toys not only help children learn practical skills, but also increase their confidence in asking questions and completing tasks. Even the smallest victory with a scientific toy will encourage them because they will feel they have won. Most importantly, because they had fun doing it, they will associate the scientific win with enjoyment and want to do it again.
For some children, these wins are especially important. Some children can easily become discouraged, and they may need the extra confidence that regular mini-victories can provide. Then, providing different educational toys and expanding their skills in different ways will provide a variety of mini-victories that will make them feel as if they have accomplished many different things through play.
- Ask questions and be brave
Most of us probably don’t think of scientific and educational toys as a way to improve children’s verbal skills, but in reality, how they are encouraged to talk about what they are doing is often helpful in developing another of their skills. Children will naturally talk about things they like, so completing a cool science experiment is a great way to encourage children to talk and learn to express themselves.
By asking questions and exploring further, we can even help improve their analytical skills as they work to try to explain what they are doing and why they are doing it. On top of that, if they are excited and focused on what they are doing, they may take the initiative to talk about it with their friends. This further develops their language skills and may even get more kids into science toys- which have to be a good thing.
- Careful observation and active thinking
Scientific and educational toys can attract children to observe, compare, collect and analyze different things, in addition to triggering children’s feverish curiosity, but also to let them develop the concept of observation, analysis, data collection, hands-on operation and factuality of various things, such as the emblematic mirror, kaleidoscope, various specimens type of toys, etc., which not only train children’s way of thinking, but also well exercise their practical operation ability. You can let the child’s mind inside the abstract concept into concrete things, in their inner little world there is a learning environment full of nature and science.
In short, most of the toys on the market have scientific and educational significance, and suppliers are guiding children to think actively and innovate with different toy forms. These scientific and educational toys not only promote the development of children’s senses and knowledge growth, because toys have the characteristics of object image, children in the process of touching, looking, holding, listening, blowing, playing also carried out the training of the senses.
And scientific toys can also be active children’s thinking, the development of children’s creativity and expressiveness. Toys resemble physical objects and not physical objects, it is a glorified object that can be manipulated by children, which can cause children to associate and imagine the things they have experienced and develop their imagination. For example, a toy telescope can cause children to sailing, mountain climbing, reconnaissance and other infinite associations. Chess and plastic toys can improve the child’s ability to analyze, judge and think sensitively as well as develop the child’s creativity and expressiveness.
