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Show SchooLrs. and V-M Home fc J by lU Dr. Daryl J. McCarty Executive Secretary Utah Education Association Watch the Toys Who can forget the Christmas that Dad bought six-year-old Jimmy a twenty-dollar twenty-dollar chemistry set? It was forgotten before the mistletoe came down from the chandelier. chan-delier. Jimmy was too young to understand things like "ammonium chloride." It's three years later now, and that chemistry set is still perched on the basement shelf next to Aunt Gwen's plum jam that nobody will eat. During the next few days when you're buying toys for children, you don't have to make the same kind of blunder. You'll have help available. First, there's no scarcity of educational toys. Just make certain the gift you buy isn't too advanced--or too elementary- for the child who will find it under the Christmas tree. Toymakers are helpful. Many, if not most, toy boxes will tell you the approximate age range of youngsters who would use and enjoy the toy. Toy clerks can counsel you, too. The toy store isn't just an enterprise that operates during poinsettia season these days. Many are year-round operations, and the clerks know toys and kids. Some educational toys are so obviously useful, you can make a good judgment without help from anyone. What about a magnetic set of letters that your first-grader first-grader can use to form words by sticking them on the refrigerator? Or a dial that points to any letter in the alphabet, and, when a string is pulled, tells by recorded voice a word that begins with that letter? Or a telescope -for the teenager who wants to see first-hand those things the astronomy book describes? If the container label, the toy clerk or personal judgment aren't enough to satisfy you, there's another expert eager to assist. This would be the youngster for whom the gift is intended. Listen to him or her. Of course, the child may want something impossible. Such as a real merry-go-round like the one at Lagoon. Nevertheless, children can Lc persuaded to expect reasonable presents that can be as upbuilding as they are entertaining. |