Creating Educational Toys
from Local Resources:
Toy Production Workshop “Little
Rabbit” Kindergarten # 103
by Lkhagva Nergui, Director,
Kindergarten # 103,
Chengeltei district Ulaanbaatar,
Mongolia
Published in Educating Children for Democracy,
Issue Number 4, Winter/Spring 2003
 Kindergarten #103 is
one of twenty-one kindergartens chosen as initial
pilot sites for the preschool education
program, “Step-by-Step” in Mongolia.
True to the its mission of the program, the first
steps of in setting up the program were directed
at establishing a favorable learning environment
appropriate for the development of children while
efficiently using kindergarten and local resources.
As Mongolia moved towards a market economy, effective
fundraising and management of the kindergarten budget
for the welfare of children and parents has become
important and, as a result, the kindergarten staff
decided to produce wooden toys for children as one
of the ways to raise money.
Mongolia is rich in wood,
therefore, we used available resources to produce
the wooden toys for construction.
The main principle was producing toys appropriate
for children’s development. We designed the
styles/forms of wooden toys that offered broad opportunities
for creative work and started manufacturing two different
sets of wooden toys: one for playing with on the
floor and another one to be used on the table.
The table toys consist of 225 pieces of 14 different
colored and varnished shapes, and can be played with
by five or six children at the same time. The bigger
toy set consists of 308 pieces of 41 different shapes
and can be played with by five to ten children at
a time. Because the toys are made of varnished pine
trees, they are very light and easy to play with.
In addition to these construction toys, we also designed
a wooden train that can be assembled for the mathematics
lessons and several other toys as well.
The workshop was established in 1998 and has been
operating for four years now. During that period
we have supplied toys for forty-one kindergartens
in the city and countryside, and the kindergarten
staff— both teachers and other staff—have
accumulated a rich experience. We feel highly satisfied
that we deliver toys to all parts of the country
and thus contribute to the development of young children.
In addition to the positive experience of the process
of manufacturing toys we have also had some problems.
For instance, the equipment often broke, the staff
worked overtime, we had budget problems resulting
from the need to pay compensation for overtime work
or for transportation, etc. However, we succeeded
in overcoming these problems and we will continue
producing toys for children. We are looking forward
to the opportunity to produce a broader selection
of toys for children.
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