It’s time again for our monthly segment: Favorite Toys Without Batteries! As we talked about in our previous segments, we love toys without batteries. Below is The Speech Space’s October list of great toys that don’t make noise, so that you can get your child talking more while you play!
Duplos: These are the beginner version for Legos. Larger than a Lego and much easier for small hands to manipulate, Duplos are great to begin building. They come in different shapes, sizes, and colors, so you can work on helping your child describe which piece they need with specific language. Duplos are also good for imaginative play. You can incorporate different toys (vehicles, action figures, stuffed animals, etc) to build houses, schools, even cities for all your child’s toys and then have them come up with a story about what they built. If they are a child who struggles to come up with ideas on their own, you can help by describing something that you’re making (“I’m making a place where a king and queen live”) to help them get started.
Bunny Hop: In this game, the bunnies are trying to steal all the carrots from the farmers. You’re trying to get one bunny of each color to win the game. This game is great for matching, following directions, vocabulary concepts, and turn taking. You never know when the bunnies will pop out and kids love the element of surprise!
Zingo: This game is similar to bingo, but is made for younger kids. The pictures are of common items, so this game is great for working on basic vocabulary building. You can work on simply naming the pictures on the tiles, asking your child what group or category the items belong to, see if your child can name additional items in the same category and even talk about how some of the pictures are the same or different. Best of all, when you fill up your whole board you get to yell, “Zingo!” (which just sounds so much more fun than regular “Bingo”).
Check back on The Speech Space blog for other fun ideas, toys and games you can do with your child to help increase their communication development. If you missed our previous Toys Without Batteries segments, check them out under the “Toys” category of our blog. If you have questions or concerns about your child’s development, contact us at The Speech Space. We offer free screenings, which take approximately 30 minutes, and can help identify potential problems.
It’s time again for our monthly segment: Favorite Toys Without Batteries! As we talked about here, here, here, and here we love toys without batteries. Below is The Speech Space’s July list of great toys that don’t make noise, so that you can get your child talking more while you play!
Buckaroo: This game makes it really easy to work on expanding your child’s vocabulary and basic concept knowledge in a fun way! When we play this game, everyone playing describes the supply they want and the other players have to guess which supply is being described. Work on having your child use different descriptors to describe the item they want to get (e.g., attributes–color, shape, size, number, function, and category). If your child is unable to do this by themselves, you can help by prompting them (e.g., “What color is it?”; “What size is it? Small, medium or big?”; “What group does it belong to?”). Once the game is over you can work on these same concepts in a receptive language task (vs. during the game when you are working on your child’s expressive language skills). You can work on your child’s receptive language skills by giving them the clues or descriptions to clean up the correct supply you describe (e.g., “Get the one that is green, big in real life, has spikes, is a type of plant, and we find it in the desert”– the cactus!).
**Pro-tip: While you are playing you may need to remind your child to put the items on the saddle very carefully otherwise he will Buckaroo! This game is typically easier for children in Pre-K and older because of the need to self-monitor how gently you put items on the saddle.
Bowling Toy bowling sets can be inexpensive and fun for the younger crowd. We like to use them with our early talkers as a way to really encourage using language during play. While setting up the pins you can use functional words (e.g., “Up-up-up” for each pin), name the pins (e.g., animals), or even name the colors or count the pins as your child gets older. Have your child tell WHO and WHAT they should do (“I roll the ball” or “You roll the ball”, etc.), or HOW you should roll it (“Through my legs” or “Under the table”, etc). After they’ve rolled the ball, talk about what happened to the pins, using quantitative concepts like “all” or “one” (e.g., “One fell down!” or “They all fell down!”).
Critter Clinic This veterinary clinic is such a fun toy for kids 3 years and older. When we use this toy in therapy sessions we like to put a bunch of small stuffed animals inside each “room” (we found a bunch of old Beanie Babies on eBay for under $8). Have your child tell you which color door they will open and then give your child clues as to what the animal inside will be. This is a great way to work on early inferencing and understanding complex language. Once they open the door and find the animal, have them tell you about it (where the animal lives, defining features, color, parts of the animal, etc) to increase their expressive vocabulary. Once all the animals are out, use the doctor tools to have your child pretend to be a veterinarian. During this time you can help your child with understanding the specific names for each tool and it’s function. If you have extra band-aids (or even some tape and a tissue), have your child tell you where the animals have boo-boo’s and give them bandages.
Check back on The Speech Space blog for other fun ideas, toys and games you can do with your child to help increase their communication development. And as always, if you have questions or concerns about your child’s development, contact us at The Speech Space! We offer free screenings, which take approximately 30 minutes, and can help identify potential problems.
As we talked about in this post, the iPad can be a useful tool with the right boundaries. Along with being mindful about how you use technology with your child, it’s important to find apps that you can actually use for your child’s language development. Here are a few of The Speech Space’s favorite apps and some ways to work language skills into the technology.
Toca Boca Hair Salon: This app let’s you pick a character and then cut and style their hair. Kids love changing the length, style, and color of hair and seeing all the fun creations they can come up with. This app has so many opportunities to incorporate a ton of adjectives in order to expand your child’s utterances– short, long, curly, wavy, straight, brown, blonde, red, wet, damp, dry…the list could go on and on. This is a slow paced app, which gives you a lot of time to make sure that your child is able to describe their creations.
Pepi Doctor: Your child gets to be the doctor in the this app! They choose what part of the patient they want to help and then they take care of all their ailments. This app is great for working on real-life vocabulary. In addition to vocabulary building there are also opportunities to help your child understand the functions of items; such as, a thermometer is used to take your temperature or the dentist uses the drill to clean your teeth. The Pepi Doctor app gives your child a way to play with instruments in an environment where you can explain more about them. You can also have your child explain to you what they did to help the patient in the game and why the patient needed help. Additionally, this app is good for inferencing and describing.
Peek-a-boo Barn: In this app different farm animals alternate appearing behind the barn doors. They each make their own animal noises (presumably saying “hi!” or “let me out of this barn!”) behind the closed barn door. Before you or your child touch the barn door to let them out, have your child guess which animal they hear (early inferencing skills). Once the door is open you can talk about or ask questions about the animal (e.g., “What did the donkey say?”, “What does an owl do?”, “What does a cow make?”, “What color is the pig?”). This app is great for younger kids working on early inferencing skills, naming animals, answering simple questions, working on putting together 2-4 word phrases (e.g., “Hi Cow.”, “Goodnight Chicken.” , “Open door for Goat.”).
Using apps can be a fun and innovative way to work on building your child’s language skills. However, it is important to remember that children do learn best through real-life engagements and interactions. If you are choosing to use apps with your child make sure you are truly using the apps with them. We’ll add some more of our favorite apps in future blog posts, so come back to check them out!
If you have questions or concerns about your child’s development, contact us at The Speech Space! We offer free screenings, which take approximately 30 minutes, and can help identify potential problems.
It’s time again for our monthly segment: Favorite Toys Without Batteries! As we talked about in our previous segments, we love toys without batteries. Below is The Speech Space’s August list of great toys that don’t make noise, so that you can get your child talking more while you play!
Melissa & Doug Lock and Roll Rescue Garage: This is a great toy for younger children and targets a lot of vocabulary. This garage has 3 colored doors and 3 keys. Each door is a different color and each lock is a different shape, so your child needs to match the key to the door color and then notice how to correctly fit the key into the lock to open the door. Once the door is unlocked, you can roll up the garage door and 1 of 3 emergency vehicles is inside (firetruck, police car, ambulance). This toy allows you to target color, shape, preposition (in, out, up, down), and vehicle vocabulary.
Marble Tower: This toy allows children to build their own tower or track for marbles to race down. When building these tracks, you are able to work on both receptive and expressive language skills. Receptively, you can describe the piece you want your child to find, or tell them where to put it (e.g., “Put the green piece on top of the blue piece with the wheel.”). Expressively, have your child tell you which piece to find or where to put it. Make sure they are specific and name features of the piece they want (e.g., “It’s pink and has a spinner.”, “It’s the long yellow piece.”).
Animal Pop-Up Toy: The Speech Space likes this option and this option These toys are great for the toddler and younger crowd. Once your child is a toddler, this toy can be great for working on problem solving skills (i.e., figuring out how to open each box/make the animals pop up, how to close the boxes/animals), as well as, your child’s expressive and receptive language skills. Receptively, you can tell your child which animal to pop up (e.g., “Open the pig”; “Where is dog?”). Expressively you and your child can work on naming the animals, making the animal noises,
Animal noise suggestions for young children working on imitating new words/sounds: Chicken says “bawk bawk”, Sheep says “ba ba”, Horse says “neigh neigh”, Cow says “moo moo”
Animal noise suggestions for young children working on imitating new words/sounds: Giraffe says “nom nom” (like eating leaves), Elephant says (raspberry noise with lips), Bear says “Grrr”, Lion says “rawwwr”, Monkey says “oo-oo, ee-ee”
Check back on The Speech Space blog for other fun ideas, toys and games you can do with your child to help increase their communication development. If you missed our previous Toys Without Batteries segments, check them out under the ”Toys” category! If you have questions or concerns about your child’s development, contact us at The Speech Space! We offer free screenings, which take approximately 30 minutes, and can help identify potential problems.
It’s time again for our monthly segment: Favorite Toys Without Batteries! As we talked about here, here, and here, we love toys without batteries. Below is The Speech Space’s June list of great toys that don’t make noise, so that you can get your child talking more while you play!
Twister: In it’s simplest form, Twister is great for working on following directions and simple concepts (colors, body parts, left/right). If you’re wanting to target more vocabulary, you can easily add more concepts into this game. Simply print pictures that target a theme your child is working on in school or seasonal vocabulary and tape the pictures to the game spots. Then, use the spinner to call out where to put their feet and hands.
Green Toys Trucks: We love Green Toys vehicles! They are made of recyclable material and are very sturdy. These vehicles are great for young kiddos that are about to be or already on the move. If you get the dump truck or recycling truck you and your child could play putting things in the trucks and then dumping them out (over and over again). You can even work on following directions and vocabulary by telling your child which items to put in the trucks. If they are older, your child could tell you what to help put in the trucks.
Don’t Wake the Hulk: Who doesn’t love superheroes? Kids will love this take on the classic game “Don’t Wake Daddy” but with a superhero twist. Players try to get their superhero through Hulk’s room and out his window. On each turn you’re either safe or you have to push his alarm clock, which may make him pop out of bed! The best part is that you don’t know if he’ll pop out of bed or not on each turn. This game is great for working on dealing with the unexpected, dealing with disappointment, making simple inferences, following directions, turn-taking and counting.
*This game may be less expensive on Ebay.
If you missed our other favorite toy blog posts you can read them here, here, here and here, Check back on The Speech Space blog for other fun ideas, toys and games you can do with your child to help increase their communication development.
And as always, if you have questions or concerns about your child’s development, contact us at The Speech Space! We offer free screenings, which take approximately 30 minutes, and can help identify potential problems.
This month for our “Toys Without Batteries” post, we decided to switch things up and post about a few toys we like that do have batteries. Battery powered toys are not always a bad thing, even though we tend to veer more towards no batteries in our therapy sessions. Many children are truly more motivated by toys that move, make noise, or light up and this is totally fine. If it gets your child talking, we’re on board! In that direction, we present toys we love that have batteries.
1. Elefun: We honestly cannot say enough about how much young children love this game. It’s been around forever and if you take care of it, this toy can last a long time (we have one that’s over 10 years old!). We like to start out talking about the parts of this toy (the nets, the elephant, his trunk, the butterflies). If you have multiple children with you, have them ask each other what color net they would like to use, which will encourage social language. Encourage your child to tell you WHERE to put the elephant, HOW to turn it on, WHAT will happen when it’s turned on etc. **Pro-tip: In order to keep Elefun in tip-top shape, we lay out 2 ‘rules’ when we play: 1.) no punching your hand through the net and 2.) adults are the only ones to touch the trunk.
2 Curious George Hide and Seek Zoo: There is a lot happening in this game, which is why we think kids like it so much. The man in the yellow hat is flying around the zoo and he finds that a bunch of things are wrong! He uses his walkie talkie to tell George (and your child) where there is a problem. This game is great for working on problem-solving skills (e.g., “What’s happening in this picture?”, “Why is this a problem?”, “How can they fix it?”). Your child will love using the walkie talkie and there is a fun part of the game where the animals escape and your child can put on a mask and hide!
**Pro-tip: this game is available on Amazon, but may be less expensive on ebay
3. Bubble Machine: A machine that shoots out bubbles!? It’s definitely as much fun as it sounds. We like to use this for increasing vocabulary by having children “get” different items or objects around the room/house with the bubble machine. Then, change it up and have them tell you what to “get.” You can even make it harder by giving “clues” or playing “I spy” when playing this game.
4. Playskool Explore N Grow Busy Gears: This is a toy geared more for the little ones (think 9-18 months). We call this a ‘cause and effect’ toy because it teaches children that when they do one thing (in this toy, push a button), something happens (the gears light up and spin around). Obviously, the lights and spinning gears are what helps keep the child’s engagement but you can use this to work on colors, asking them simple ‘wh’ questions so they can point to answer, and following simple directions.
If you missed our other favorite toy blog posts you can read them here, here, and here. Check back on The Speech Space blog for other fun ideas, toys and games you can do with your child to help increase their communication development.
And as always, if you have questions or concerns about your child’s development, contact us at The Speech Space! We offer free screenings, which take approximately 30 minutes, and can help identify potential problems.
