Matthew's interest in checking our mailbox for mail daily was my cue to find him a mailbox toy. I scored a used Little Tikes Mailbox at our local consignment store for $9.99. This simple mailbox only produced one sound - a bee buzzing around it unlike the Fisher Price mailbox which has a song mode, learning mode and play mode with various mailbox sound effects.The used Little Tikes mailbox came with only 1 plastic piece of mail instead of 3 but the missing pieces did not take away from this toy's play value. I improvised. Using small envelopes, I labeled them "Daddy", "Mommy", "Elizabeth", "Matthew", and "cat". Since Matthew can sight read, he hand delivers each piece of mail to the intended recipients without any help. It's very cute and puts a smile on my face whenever he does this. He looks so proud of himself too whenever he delivers the mail. It's hilarious to watch him try to give Yuri, our cat, his mail. Matthew follows Yuri around until Yuri finally settles down somewhere. Then Matthew will lay the "cat" mail in front of Yuri.
For several minutes of entertainment and Matthew's enjoyment in pretending to be a mailman, we like having this mailbox. It's great for pretend play. And to me, any toy that encourages pretend play encourages language development as well.
4 comments:
What a great find! I bet you could order some of the missing parts from their website or maybe find them on eBay.
Hello..i am a mom to two beautiful children who happen to have something extra special. i stay at home now to spend time with them. i was a teacher of pre-k special needs students. i love your blog!! in my classroom i used many of your ideas and you have given me many more to use at home : ) i wanted to share this website with you http://more.starfall.com/m/welcome/index/load.htm
we used 'starfall' in our classroom and now they have "morestarfall'. my 3 year old, Kaleb loves this site. thanks for sharing with us : )
We have this toy. It was great for Goldie to work on putting things "in". I love what you're doing with it! I think we'll do this tomorrow. Thanks.
I bought Lily the Melissa and Doug mailbox for Christmas. My only complaint about it is that it has three slots and it's kind of hard for Lily to slide the "mail" in. We also use it when we are working with flashcards. When Lily correctly identifies something, she then gets to put the card in her mailbox.
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