he mental simulation or scheme they construct about the world around them during play. This mental picture created by the child is illustrated by the toys used by the child. The research provided by ethologists seems to indicate that all advanced animals use toys as a method of developing an understanding of their environment. The text uses an example, of chimpanzees needing to play with sticks before they fully understood how to use them, to illustrate that animals seem to play with objects in order to gain an understanding of there properties. A human infants display of aw and wonderment at a new toy can readily be observed. Furthermore, the childs fascination and amazement generally leads to curiosity which causes the child to eventually play with the object. In-turn, the child then begins attempting to understand the new object and how it can be used by him or her as a means of interacting with the external world. This idea of how we come to gains knowledge as children extents throughout our life. All knowledge appears to be learned by first playing with something, whether that something is a theory, or a concept, or a physical object. Once a person has digested the properties of the idea then that person can begin to manipulate that principle and make it their own....
