If you’re looking for some fantastic and fun toys this Christmas, why not think about some that will double up to help with a child’s development too? Grown-ups can often find children’s games and toys to be quite annoying – they might be noisy and you might feel silly, but many are designed to tap into their development.
But…they’re such good fun – the child won’t even notice they’re learning!
We use toys at every assessment or therapy session - our clinic sessions are always fun – lots of play, so that we can explore speech, language and communication in a natural way with children.
Whilst we’re playing, we’re also observing and assessing, or planning what the child responds to well for the next session.
Here are our favourite toys and games we use in our Chilham and Tenterden clinics. Most are bought in charity shops or donated, so you really don’t need to spend a fortune…the children don’t mind if they’re second hand, they just want them to be fun!
From age 2+
Around £10
Brilliant for imaginative play and role play - there is so much you can do with these, modelling play skills to your child and having a pretend tea party with dollies or teddies or action figures.
Having a set with different colour items or different size cups, plates and spoons gives even more scope for language development: ‘teddy wants the big red cup’. It’s great for developing verbs/action words too as you can label what you are doing; e.g: stirring, pouring, drinking, tipping etc.
For children 3+
Around £15
This is our founder Sidonie’s favourite!
As well as working on turn-taking skills, the child has a chance to develop their fine motor skills – it’s quite tricky hanging the monkeys on the tree.
They will also learn about the need to keep the tree branches balanced with the weight of the monkeys.
They can spin the spinner and start to recognise early numbers and count out how many they need to put on the tree.
Great for colour knowledge too. And most importantly, it’s super fun!
From 3+
Around £20 – depending on what size and accessories you get
From about 3 years onwards, a doll’s house, farm set or castle is a brilliant big gift – ours was £20 from a Facebook seller and came with all the accessories, people and furniture.
This toy is great for imaginative play. Children can set the house up and think about all the different furniture that goes in each room like the bedroom, kitchen or bathroom. It’s great for getting the figures to do things and work on those action words/verbs more e.g. sitting, watching tv, washing up, sleeping, showering, working, playing etc.
In clinic, we use the doll’s house for teaching prepositional language such as in/on/under/in front/ behind etc, by getting them to place objects or characters in the bath or under the table.
We also hide little objects and the child then has to find them and say where they were hiding:, for example, under the bed.
From 2+
£5 to buy or make your own (you can find templates online)
Emotions can be really tricky for children to understand as they are really abstract concepts and feelings. You can’t pick up an object of ‘sad’ and know what it is!
Toddlers notoriously go through the ‘terrible twos’ stage and this is often because they find their emotions really hard to understand, explain and regulate.
Using a simple picture chart and referring to it regularly can help the child to associate a feeling with the right word; e.g: you are feeling cross at the moment.
Adults should also tell the children how they feel: ‘I am tired because you woke up at 4am!’
The earlier children can start to understand their emotions the better - the easier they will be better able to express themselves to you and explain what is wrong.
Children love trying to 'swat' or 'splat' the correct picture as fast as they can.
Photos can be illustrations of items, written words or real photographs. It is great to practice speech sounds (e.g. 'ch' sound cards), identifying sight words (e.g. 'find the one that says 'chap') matching word and pictures (e.g. find the 'girl dancing'). etc.
It is also great for physical movement, channelling energy if they are feeling a bit wiggly.
This allows so much imaginative play with lots of opportunities for speech and communication practice.
Great for practising labelling items - oven, spoon, apple, kettle.
Practising speech sounds - 'p' words such as pear, pumpkin, pot, pan.
Teaching action words - pouring, mixing, blending, stirring, eating, slurping, cutting, chopping, slicing.
Teaching concepts / descriptive vocabulary - hot, cold, plump, juicy, boiling, frozen, warm, sour, bitter, sweet, fresh, mouldy, delicious, disgusting.
Categorisation - foods that belong in categories such as 'breakfast, snack, dinner, lunch,' foods that belong in the fridge or cupboard, foods that can be grown on trees or root etc, vegetables, meats, fruit etc.
This is a fun game to practice turn taking sounds, such as the 's' sound, expanding their words.
For example, the child says 'I got fish' and the adult can expand this by saying 'you got a blue fish!'
It’s completely free to visit the great outdoors anytime - especially during the holiday season.
Speech, language communication and interaction skills can be practised anywhere, anytime and do not need to cost money.
When going on forest or outdoor walks, you can practice developing vocabulary by doing a Nature Walk Scavenger Hunt. You’ll find loads of ideas online - e.g: ‘let's find things outside beginning with 'b'’.
You can develop vocabulary and categorisation skills:
‘Let's spot things that can fly’
‘Can we see animals that have NOT got wings?’
‘Let’s look for insects/fruits/berries.’
A listening walk is good fun – ‘can you name two things you can hear?’. Create dens or try nest building and practice a range of skills including turn-taking, eye contact, teamwork, interaction skills, vocabulary and communication.
Bubbles are a great all-rounder that children love and they can be used for so many things!
Oral motor skills - lip rounding, blowing and breath support, encouraging the ‘p’ sound by making the bubble ‘wobble’ on the wand as you say ‘p-p-p’.
Concepts / vocabulary - big, little, tiny, up, down, lots, blow, catch , stamp, pop, gone, wow, wet, bye-bye bubbles / no more.
Encouraging shared / joint attention on the same activity with another person.
Visual tracking - watching where the bubbles land.
Turn-taking – requesting… ‘more’/ ‘open’ / ‘no more’.
Building anticipation/ encouraging waiting.
Making choices - shall I blow bubbles to dolly or mummy?’ or ‘Shall I pop the bubble on my hand or my leg?’
Sharing joy – have fun, smile, laugh and feel good!
It’s fun, colourful and really good fun – the ultimate disguise for an educational toy!
We use it for:
Turn-taking Colour recognition and naming
Making choices - between which colour flag / where to put flag
Reinforcing vocabulary - pirate / sword / pop / push / up / down / in / out / again / more.
Speech sound work - place a few swords on two sound picture symbols and the child listens for the sound, then chooses a flag from that pile to put in the barrel
Hand-eye coordination/fine motor skills – placing the tiny flags
This is a great game that we use for speech sound work: encouraging a child to tune into and listen for their target sound or word amidst a string of others we say…the child can only launch the rocket when they hear the target sound.
This game is also brilliant for:
Building anticipation
Encouraging good listening and good waiting – ‘ready, steady….go!’
Joint / shared attention on an activity
Balance
Visual tracking
Vocabulary - up / down / wow! / high / low / stamp / jump / counting / blast off! / go!
Puppets really do give you endless possibilities, but here are just a few examples of the way we use puppets:
In speech sound work - encouraging the child to listen to the puppet attempt a word and say whether he has remembered a target sound or not
Listening for sounds and feeding the puppet the sound picture we say
Vocabulary - food names / greedy / hungry / tummy / more / full / no more
Action words - eating / drinking / whatever you want the puppet to do! Making choices of which food to feed the puppet.
Great for super fidgety children who need to have a movement break / sensory input in-between seated therapy activities to replenish their attention and listening. They can sit or stand on it and rock to and fro, or from side to side. It also helps to develop and reinforce balance and core strength. After a quick movement break, they are more able to come back to the table and continue learning with our toys and games.
The wobble board, when turned over, can also serve as a ‘bridge’ to work on concepts such as under / on / over - using vehicle play, or it can be used as a ‘slide’ for toys (encouraging vocabulary such as up / down / go! / wee! / fast / slow.
Making choices between which two toys or whose turn it is to go down the slide next.
Happy Christmas gift shopping – and don’t forget to join in…it’s so much fun!
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