Toy Recommendations

The importance of play in early childhood cannot be underestimated. Play helps children develop skills in a number of different areas of childhood development.

Play helps children to:

• Develop listening & attention skills
• Develop turn-taking skills
• Develop language & communication
• Develop social skills
• Develop problem solving skills
• Develop understanding of emotions
• Develop relationships
• Develop motor skills

In this post, we’ll take a look at some toy recommendations and ideas for early learners.

Stacking Cups

Stacking cups can be used to work on some of the following skills:

• Vocabulary Development. Model the concepts: ‘on, in/out, up/down’.
• Requesting. Encourage your child to request ‘more’ or ‘help’ by using gestures, sounds or word approximations.
• Turn- taking skills. Take turns stacking the cups. Turn-taking is a vital skill in conversation development and one that can be taught across a range of toddler toys.
• Symbolic Play Skills. Engage in some silly play with your toddler. Use a cup as a pretend hat or pretend to take a drink. Lay the foundations for their imaginative thinking.
• Problem Solving Skills. Your child is working hard during this activity, trying to figure out which cups stack on top of each other. Another idea is to hide some chocolate buttons under a cup and encourage them to find it.

Shape sorter

Shape sorters can be used to work on the following skills:

• Hand/eye coordination
• Motor skills
• Problem Solving
• Turn-taking
• Requesting ‘help’
• Developing your child’s understanding of shapes can help with literacy development later on.

Bubbles

Bubbles are another great recommendation and can be used to target the following:

• Eye Contact. Blowing bubbles can encourage lots of eye contact as your child anticipates more. Wait for your child to make eye contact before blowing again.
• Cause and effect. Children begin to learn that their actions caused the desired event through cause and effect toys and activities. This paves the way for higher level problem solving and reasoning skills. Children will enjoy using their fingers and hands to pop the bubbles!
• Early speech sound development. Stimulate early sounds such as [p] as you pop the bubbles.
• Automatic speech: Ready, steady, go. Wait for your child to attempt the word ‘go’ before blowing the next bubble.
• Requesting. Encourage your child to request ‘more’ bubbles. Tie the bubbles tightly and encourage your child to say ‘open’ or ‘help’.

Building Blocks

Building blocks can be used to target the following skills:

• Hand-eye coordination
• Fine/ gross motor skills
• Constructive play (the use of materials to create or build something)
• Cause & effect (e.g. knocking over a tower)
• Creativity and imagination
• Problem Solving
• Concepts: on, off, in, out, up.
• Social skills: turn-taking, cooperating with others.
• Colours, Shapes & Sizes
• Counting

For lots more toy recommendations, visit my Instagram page @jumpstartspeechtherapy