The following developmental skills and benefits are encouraged by Rico the Prince - Wooden Marionette Puppet learning toy:

Rico the Prince - Wooden Marionette Puppet develops Sensory stimulation - touch
Infants and young children first learn about the external and internal world through their senses of sight, sound, touch, taste and smell as sensory information is transmitted to the brain.

Sensory Integration involves the ability to take in the information gathered through the senses from the internal and external world and put it together in a meaningful way. The complex interplay between the various senses is necessary as the child learns about, acts and responds to the environment in appropriate ways. For example, a baby's sense of sight will help him or her reach out for a rattle on the table. The sense of touch will enable him to feel for and grab the rattle and to determine how much pressure to exert to hold and shake the rattle. The sense of hearing will allow the baby to distinguish the sound made by the shaking rattle. As all of this sensory information is processed, the child learns how to interpret and respond to various environmental cues.

Rico the Prince - Wooden Marionette Puppet develops Sensory stimulation - visual
Vision is the process of understanding what is seen by the eyes. It involves more than the simple visual ability to distinguish fine details. Vision also involves fixation and eye movement abilities, focusing, convergence (eye aiming), binocularity (eye teaming), and the control of hand-eye coordination. Most hand movements require visual input to be carried out effectively. For example, when children are learning to draw, they follow the position of the hand holding the pencil visually as they make lines on the paper.

Between four and 14 months of age, infants explore their world and develop hand-eye coordination, in conjunction with fine motor skills. Fine motor skills are involved in the control of small muscle movements, such as when an infant starts to use fingers with a purpose and in coordination with the eyes.

Rico the Prince - Wooden Marionette Puppet develops problem solving/Cognitive Development
Cognitive development is the process by which the brain develops the abilities to learn, remember and solve problems.

The foundation for these abilities starts during infancy as the brain begins forming countless synapses, or connections, between brain or nerve cells. The brain is made up of neurons (nerve cells resembling long wires).

When a baby is born there are relatively few connections between the neurons, and it is you and your baby's primary task to make new ones. Connections (synapses) between brain cells are made when a baby receives stimulation. As you engage and responds to your baby, you are helping to activate the formation of synapses. The synapses will combine to form neural pathways, and the configuration of those pathways will determine the child's ability to learn, relate to people, manage emotions, and function in the world.

Rico the Prince - Wooden Marionette Puppet introduce children to discovery

Rico the Prince - Wooden Marionette Puppet develops cause and effect

Rico the Prince - Wooden Marionette Puppet stimulates fantasy, imaginative play and role play