Toy Review Tuesday: Super Sorting Pie by Learning Resources

The kids love the Super Sorting Pie. It's been a versatile toy since Christmas (2011) and great for learning colors, sorting, counting, fine motor practice with tongs, and even pretend play.

Three 2-sided cardboard inserts come with the pie and provides a good visual for the kids to remember how I am asking them to sort the fruits. The inserts are easily interchangeable by simply lifting the sectioned-off part of the pie.

Elizabeth enjoys sorting by color and by type of fruit.



I've even used it for simple addition and subtraction practice with Matthew.



When not sorting or counting, the kids play with it many days in the week pretending to bake a fruit pie in their play kitchen. Today, they were so cute playing together. Matthew was telling Elizabeth what fruit he needed and how many and Elizabeth listened, understood him (she usually always does despite his struggle with articulating some words), and played along. I would've taken a longer video but stopped right after Elizabeth announced, "I'm pooping." Thankfully, she still wears diapers.



As of today, it's selling on amazon.com for less than $20. It's also available on the Learning Resources website but it costs more.

Toy Review Tuesday: Felt Board Stories

Using felt board pieces are one way I am able to make stories or rhymes more tangible. Matthew and Elizabeth enjoy putting the felt pieces on our modified garage sale-bought (for $5) easel. It's "modified" because I covered the chalkboard side with 4 sheets of adhesive felt ($1 per 8" x 10" sheet).

Beyond Play sells magnetic felt boards and felt boards with cardboard backing. I didn't want to spend $20 to $30 on a felt board for our purposes. I suppose I could've also made one using a flat panel of wood from the hardware store and covered that with adhesive felt sheets. Hmmm...

We have several felt story sets. So far, we have "5 Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed", which is pre-cut and store-bought (online from Beyond Play). Matthew enjoys pulling the monkeys off the felt board and dropping them on the floor. Then he says, "No, no" while shaking his head when we get to the part "No more monkeys jumping on the bed."

The rest I made using felt board templates from an educational resource website called DLTK's Growing Together. There is an option to print in color or black and white - with the idea that the kids will color the pieces. Then I cut out the pieces, laminated them (I use a Scotch Thermal laminator. It is so easy to use and does the job very well.), and put adhesive felt on the backs so they'd stick to the felt board. I tried using cut up pieces of sandpaper but the glue wouldn't hold the sandpaper and plastic together.

We have Baa, Baa Black Sheep, 5 Little Ducks, and Itsy Bitsy Spider.

I also made a fish tank felt set (with stiffer felt) just for fun. It's been good for counting and colors. I only made 10 fish though.

Our latest homemade felt story set is "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" since that is the book that Matthew's preschool class is reading at school this week. I also made separate pieces with just the words "brown bear", "yellow duck", "blue horse", and so on for all the animals in that book.

Play time with the felt stories isn't consistent though. The kids' staying power largely depends on their moods and how interesting I make it. Sometimes they'll be into the felt stories for 5-10 minutes at a time. Sometimes I am only able to hold their interest for 2 minutes. But that's ok. With most activities I do with them, I go for repetition and fun instead of length of time. Repetition has always been one of the important keys to Matthew's learning. And of course, it has to be fun!

Overall, they've been great to have for my visual learner (Matthew) and my quick study (Elizabeth). They are another simple tool to encourage speech, language, cognition, and reading.

National Geographic Kids & Down Syndrome

Tonight, after a tiring and somewhat frustrating day, I was browsing the National Geographic Kids website for books, pictures, and videos to show Matthew. Several things looked great for Matthew such as the National Geographic Little Kids magazine, some short videos, and real-life photos of animals and nature. Matthew owns "Safari" from the Kids Readers books and likes it. Maybe it was time to get more titles from this series.

One little gem of inspiration (and Down syndrome advocacy) was in the News-People & Places section. I Have Down Syndrome--Know Me Before You Judge Me by Melissa Riggio. I absolutely loved what she wrote at the end about not able to change the fact that she has Down syndrome, but how she would change how people think of her. She also wrote, "Treat me with respect, and accept me for who I am. Most important, just be my friend. After all, I would do the same for you."

After reading her piece, I continued to browse the site for fun stuff for Matthew. But this time, with a smiling heart.