It’s time again for our monthly segment: Favorite Toys Without Batteries! As we talked about here and here, we love toys without batteries. Below is The Speech Space’s April list of great toys that don’t make noise, so that you can get your child talking more while you play!
Magna-Tiles: These are a HUGE hit with kids. We are always surprised at the endurance children have with Magna-Tiles. For younger children, we tend to like the Magformers a little more, as they are easier to grip and the magnets seem to hold a little stronger. You can work on having your child describe the shape, color, size and/or number of the Magna-Tiles they want to use, sort the tiles by these same attributes (i.e., color, shape, size, number) or describe/talk about what they want to build. You can also make something and give your child clues (e.g., “It’s big and astronauts fly it to space”–a spaceship) so they can guess what you made!
Pop-up Pirate: Anything that pops out and surprises kids is sure to be a hit. This game is great to work on following directions, prepositions (i.e., location), and attributes attributes. You can hide the swords in various locations and then have your child go find them by giving directions (e.g., “Find the blue sword that is under the chair.”). This is also an easy game to incorporate simple 2 step directions (e.g., “Get the red sword before you get the green sword.”). We always modify things for our kids when needed, so feel free to do the same! You can limit the number of swords you put out to make it easier for your child. You can also work on increasing your child’s expressive language with this game. Have your child hide the swords and then give you the directions. Make sure your child is using attributes and prepositions in their directions (e.g., “Get the red sword.”, “Get the sword next to the chair.”, “Get 2 blue swords that are on the table.”). If your child is working on a specific sound, you can have them produce the sound or a word with that particular sound for every sword they put into the pirate’s barrel (e.g., if they are working on their V sound for every sword they have to say a word with a V in it).
What’s in Ned’s Head: Ned has some really weird (and really gross!) things in his head that you need to get out. Along with all the items in Ned’s head, there are matching picture cards which you can use to describe the objects your child needs to get out. Or you and your child can take turns describing which items you have to get out of his head. When making descriptions make sure to use attributes (i.e., color, shape, size, number), category (i.e., what group does the item belong to), function (i.e., what does the item do or what do we do with the item) and location (where would you find or see the item); these concepts help build your child’s vocabulary and language organization skills. All of our kids think this game is hilarious (especially when we feign not wanting to pull out the things they describe because they are “so gross!” or “so scary!”). You can even talk about the items and compare/contrast them (e.g., which one is your favorite, which one is the weirdest or grossest, why? etc)– just make it fun and silly and your child will enjoy it!
Picture Scenes (reusable stickers and magnets): These have been around for ages and continue to be a great way to work on a variety of language concepts. Most of these ‘scenes’ do a great job of targeting vocabulary in a particular context, such as a jungle or the beach, which is great for increasing your child’s use of specific vocabulary. When using these picture scenes, make sure that you withhold the stickers or magnets and have your child use correct vocabulary to request which stick or magnet they want! You can also give your child directions to help work on their understanding of prepositions and locations (e.g., “Put the shark under the big ship.”).
These are just a few more our favorite toys without batteries. If you missed our previous segments, you can see them 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.
It’s time again for our monthly segment: Favorite Toys Without Batteries! As we talked about in this post, we love toys without batteries. Below is The Speech Space’s March list of great toys that don’t make noise– so that you can get your child talking more while you’re playing!
1. Cariboo: One of our favorite games ever! In this game, you hide balls below an array of boxes with pictures of different objects. When you find all of the balls, the treasure chest opens– like magic! This game is great because you can target language in so many different ways. A few ways you can play this game: have your child open boxes based on color, category, number of objects, or even give multiple descriptions to work on their understanding of complex sentences (e.g., “Open the box with a green vehicle that can fly.”)
2. Disney Princess Cupcake: We always modify games when needed, and this one is no exception. There are two main ways we like to play this game to maximize working on language skills. The first way to play with your child would be to separate all cupcake pieces and then tell your child the “recipe” (from the recipe cards) or have your child give you the recipe to create your cupcakes. The second way you can play is by tossing the recipe cards and letting your child get creative by telling you how they want to make the cupcakes. This game is great for increased descriptive language (e.g., “I want the blue wrapper, tall chocolate cake, the yellow and white frosting and the pink flower topper.”) and following directions.
3. Dramatic Play: Dramatic play is wonderful for increasing language in children. It’s especially important for them to pretend with materials that they may or may not have experienced yet, but possibly will encounter. Doctors kits (check out this one), kitchen sets (like this one), camping and/or fishing equipment, grocery store carts and items, and restaurant toys (aprons, pretend bills, etc) are all great things for kids to get used to by pretending with them before experiencing them in real life.
4. Little People: The Fisher Price Little People were toys we played with growing up. They’re great for targeting pronouns (e.g., he/she, his/her), descriptions (e.g., “The girl who is holding a bird.”), prepositions (e.g., “Put the boy under the table.”), and actions (e.g., “He’s swinging and she will slide.”). Again, imaginative play is so very important for your child’s language development! Imaginative play with fun toys can help expand your child’s language in a structured environment while you help scaffold and expand their utterances.
5. Box of fun: This is totally made up and you can throw anything in! Think of putting in an assortment of small, unique toys your child may find interesting. Some of our boxes have a variety of windup toys (you can get a large bag on Amazon for under $15), bubbles, accordion tubes, silly putty, a spinning light up toy— basically a bunch of weird, silly, fun things! Have your child request items by function or description or name them, they can request help using specific nouns and verbs ( e.g., “Can you help me wind up with monkey toy?”), or they can talk to you about how each thing works or feels. Cheap and easy fun is the best!These are just a few more our favorite toys and ideas. If you missed last month’s segment on our favorite toys without batteries, you can see it 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 language and communication development.
And as always, if you have questions or concerns about your child’s speech and language, contact us at The Speech Space!
Do battery operated toys hurt your young child’s development? There is a lot of debate about this issue, but we believe that ultimately, if you (and others) engage your child with the toy and your child enjoys a toy, it does not matter whether it has batteries. However, in our professional practice at The Speech Space, we lean towards more toys without batteries in our therapy and play. Toys without batteries can be more open ended, therefore, encouraging more creativity when you use them to play with your child. Additionally, if a toy is not making a battery-operated noise, your child is more likely to make noise! It is easier to encourage speech and language when a toy isn’t making noise or ‘talking’ while you play.
Here are some of our favorite battery-free toys:
Pretend food: So versatile in the different games you can play with your child, and the vocabulary you can elicit with your child is extensive, fun, and practical! Not only are there tons of nouns (e.g., banana, plate, milk, oven, etc.), but there are countless verbs you can use that relate to your child’s everyday life (e.g., eat, drink, cut, cook, blow, etc.). With pretend food, you can encourage building your child’s understanding (technically called receptive language) by giving directions or having your child identify items by color, function and/or category. The opportunities for building their speech (technically expressive language) are also endless! Your child can label items, tell you what to do with each item (e.g. “You cut with the knife.”), explain the sequence of activities (e.g., “First we cook the food and then we eat the food.”), or simply describe what they’re doing (e.g., “I’m cutting this apple.”). We love Melissa and Doug pretend food because they are wooden (easy to clean!) and the velcro is very durable.
Blocks: In our professional sessions, we use wooden or cardboard blocks, but really, any blocks are great! There are so many things to build, which encourages the use of location vocabulary. For example, if your child has a superhero they love, you could decide “where” the superhero will live. Prepositions (e.g., in, on, under, next to, etc.) are easily incorporated while you play with your child. Quantity matters most with blocks – while 30 blocks may not retain your child’s interest, 100 blocks opens up many more possibilities! You can slowly build up their block collection with new blocks, or head over to eBay for some gently used blocks that are a little cheaper! Just remember to ask questions and give directions while you play and you can help your child’s speech and language development as well as their imagination!
Play-Doh: Yes, Play-Doh is still around and kids still love it! The variety of Play-Doh toys is abundant and you can pick some up pretty cheap on Amazon and eBay. Playing with Play-Doh encourages the use of verbs (e.g., cutting, rolling, pushing, etc.) and nouns (e.g., colors, animals, tools, etc.). One of our favorite things to do with Play-Doh is to hide small objects in a ball of it and let your child find the object (super fun surprises!). It helps you introduce vocabulary and encourages your child to explore the Play-Doh and the object. Children love getting to rip or tear the Play-Doh apart and generally use more language when they feel like they get to be a little ‘messy’!
Dress Up Clothes: Again, pretending is so important for your child to try out language and everyday activities by exploring them in their own environment. You can get dress up clothes from garage sales or Goodwill or on sale after Halloween. They don’t have to be made to be “dress up clothes”! For example, if you go to Goodwill, you can often find old lab coats or fancy dresses or military gear and this could all be dress up clothes. The important thing is to play with your child and help build their imagination and language!
Sensory Table: This may be one of the messier type of toys, but so worth it! Sensory tables are great to fill with water, sand, beans or many other things you and your child want to explore together. You can change the items in the table seasonally (e.g., leaves and pinecones in the fall; sand or water in the summer; cotton balls or white pom-pom balls or shaving cream in the winter) to encourage your child’s understanding and use of a wide variety of vocabulary. Additionally, children love using a variety of senses to learn and explore and sensory tables are perfect for that!
Building a water castle or city!
Playing with bugs in colored rice.
Digging for treasure!
The most important thing to remember when playing with your child is to find things that interest them and encourage their engagement and attention to play with you! Play is fundamental to your child’s development – it’s the foundation of language, critical thinking and problem-solving for later in life! Children learn best through play and real interactions, so make it fun!
Come back to our blog as we continue to post about more toys and ways to monitor and support your child’s development. If you have concerns or questions about your child’s communication development, please reach out to us at The Speech Space!
