# Smart Toys in Early Childhood and Primary Education:
### Review of Literature  
Numerous studies are carried out regarding integrating technology in objects and toys intended for early childhood and primary school children. Usually, toys such as those mentioned above can be used for various purposes such as entertainment, socialization, education, etc. The smart toys used as digital storytelling tools to record children's ideas through playful processes present great research interest. One of the first examples of smart toys introduced was Rosebud [22]. Rosebud is an interface that extracts digital narratives through children's interaction with various technologically enhanced physical objects enabling them to write, modify and share their ideas. Similarly, in MIT's multimedia lab, [PERSON] and [PERSON] developed in 1999 the StoryMat, a collaborative digital storytelling system [23]. The StoryMat enables the recording of children's voices and movements. Evaluations of this toy showed that children produced more fictional stories compared with when they used traditional toys. The Dolltalk is an interface that encourages children to create their personal stories [24]. It uses voice and movement recognition techniques. Then, it reproduces these stories using different characters in the story. The toy used tangible technology features. The StoryTech is a \"smart toy\" of digital story-telling that combines the real with the digital world [13]. Children handle real-world objects and interact in this way with virtual world objects in order to create their own stories. It is based on radio frequency identification (RFID) technology for communicating physical objects with digital counterparts. Another example of such toys is TOK (Touch, Organize, Create) [25]. TOK uses natural blocks to handle virtual data through a tangible surface in order to create digital narratives by early childhood and primary school children. A key element of the TOK is the fact that children can work together using physical objects together. Similar digital storytelling systems for children are Tell-Tale [26], t-words [25] and jabberstamp [27]. Another category of smart toys is those developed to assist the educational process. An educational toy named Curlybot, was developed to help children of at least four years old understand advanced mathematics (for example, geometry) and computer concepts through play [28]. In 2007 at the MIT's multimedia laboratory, [PERSON] et al. [29] presented the Siftables platform, an innovative electronic cube platform that combines wireless technology, sensors and a graphics display. By interacting with the cubes, children can create their own drawings, deal with simple mathematical problems and create their own words. The SMART is an augmented reality system used to teach students of the 2 nd grade. Specifically, children explore 3D simulation models through play [30]. After real-time research, the results showed that the system significantly helps the learning process of mainly weak students. Another example of this category of toys is Educational Magic Toys--EMT, which constitute a series of toys that have incorporated augmented reality features such as 3D objects to introduce children aged 5-6 years old in basic concepts, such as colours, numbers and animals [14]. In the DigiTile project, students are called to solve mathematical challenges by placing appropriate shares on a tangible surface [31]. A similar example is TanTab which consists of a tangible surface on which tangrams are placed and aims to explore geometric concepts [32]. In 2014, [PERSON], [PERSON] and [PERSON] presented an augmented reality learning environment called AIBLE, which was designed to teach basic astronomical phenomena to primary school children [33]. The innovation of this environment lay in the use of 3D augmented reality models that students experimented with, interacting with physical objects on which digital signs (tangible markers) have been added. These features give students the chance to perceive the motion of the planets in real space.