Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Toy Review Tuesday: Slide - Indoor & Convertible

My Play Gym

An indoor slide is a fun thing to have especially when it's too hot, cold, or rainy to be outside.

It took me about 20 to 30 minutes to put our slide together. It is also actually convertible to a chair and table or bench. I haven't tried any of the other configurations yet though but here are a couple of photos of the side of the box.

I love that this slide generally isn't tippy. In our current configuration, which is pictured below, the only time it has threatened to fall on its side was when Matthew put most of his weight into pulling on the top sidebar. It's easy to climb with more of a wide step instead of a narrow ladder-type set-up. The slide is about 14 to 15 inches wide.

other slide configurations

other setups

We've had this set since Matthew was a year old. Here he is in this video when he was 16 months old. Introducing the slide to him, I sat him at the top and encouraged him to slide down. He got the hang of it and learned to shift his weight forward to help propel himself.



Elizabeth, at 11 months old, is enjoying the slide too. She crawls up the steps and I help get her legs out in front of her at the top of the slide.

Elizabeth sliding at 11 months

Matthew loves to slide on his tummy. He also doesn't mind sharing the slide and taking turns with Elizabeth.

Matthew's turn to slide

Elizabeth's turn to slide

Since Christmas, Matthew found it interesting to have various things go down the slide like balls, snowmen, cars, anything that fits and slides. So I've used this as a simple, mini speech and language activity with repeat phrases for him to parrot and practice articulation. Some examples are:

Go ball go!
Go car go!

OR

Ball slide down. Weee!!
Car slide down. Weee!!


snowman slide down

ball slide down

7 comments:

Rochelle said...

You are such an awesome teacher, love how you take the slide activity and work in some speech. Awesome!

Melissa said...

This is so cool! Claire would just love it. When we take her to the park now we put her on the slide partway up and still hang on to her. She laughs like crazy! This is small enough that I think she could be going down it by herself in no time!

Anonymous said...

Amazing blog and thanks a lot for sharing wonderful Mathew with us. Could you please tell where to find this slide?

Jenzlife said...

Did you find this at a special price? I only find it for $6200. We would love this since we have a small home.

Jenzlife said...

Did you find this at a special cost? We can only find it for $6200. This would be ideal since we have a small home.

Anon said...

My son also has this toy. He loves it.

Ria said...

@jenzlife I wish I knew. Matthew was fortunate enough to get this as a gift. Sorry that I do t know what store to direct you to.