Against the backdrop of advancing rural revitalization and the high-quality development of preschool education in rural areas, rural children face practical challenges such as scarce toy resources, inadequate toy adaptability, and unmet educational needs. Homemade toys offer advantages like easily accessible materials, low costs, and alignment with rural lifestyles, making them an effective solution to bridge this gap. However, rural parents generally perceive them as mere "tools for entertaining children," overlooking their educational value, and often exhibit issues such as haphazard production, simplistic play methods, and insufficient home-school collaboration. Through literature review, a four-dimensional strategy is proposed: "Shifting Parental Perspectives—Enhancing Parent-Child Interaction—Strengthening Home-School Collaboration—Improving External Support." By clarifying rural resource categories and adhering to principles like educational value, scientific rigor, and engagement, toys are designed with developmental levels in mind. The educational value is further enriched by integrating rural life scenarios, heuristic parent-child interactions, and diverse application scenarios. This approach effectively taps into the educational potential of homemade toys in rural households, fostering children's cognitive, motor, and cultural identity development while providing practical pathways for preschool education resource development in rural areas and laying the foundation for cultivating early-stage talent in rural revitalization.

Nianru Yang, Lei Zhou, Meiling Tao, Anli Long. From "Recreational Items" to "Educational Tools": Development and Application of Homemade Toys for Rural Preschool Children. International Journal of New Developments in Education (2025), Vol. 7, Issue 12: 74-80. https://doi.org/10.25236/IJNDE.2025.071211.

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