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.

Stickers Activity for Fine Motor Skills

I love great ideas, especially if it's a fun, productive, educational activity for the kids. I recently picked up two great resources for promoting fine motor skills from the facebook group "Educational Strategies for Children with Down Syndrome".

hands on: As We Grow - 30 Kids Activities & Materials for Promoting Fine Motor Skills
PreKinders: Resources for preK teachers - Fine Motor Skills

We tried the sticker activity from "hands on". It was a success! We used small stickers and $1 Shape Tracing activity books from Target. Since I haven't been working on handwriting with either of them, I thought this was a good opportunity to use the tracing books.

Elizabeth was determined to put stickers on the dotted lines to complete her square.

Matthew stayed focused putting stickers on the dotted lines for his oval.

They both did a great job!

Toy Review Tuesday: Melissa & Doug Pattern Blocks & Boards

The Melissa & Doug Pattern Blocks & Boards comes with 6 wooden shapes and colors - white diamonds, blue diamonds, yellow hexagons, red trapezoids, green triangles, orange squares - and 10 geometric patterns on wooden boards. The shapes can also be used to create more unique patterns without the pattern boards but for a 2-year old and 4-1/2 year old, it was simpler to start with a ready visual.

Not surprisingly, 2-year old Elizabeth can easily scan the box of mixed shapes to find all the needed pieces by herself. She can finish a pattern mostly by herself, with just a little help to reposition the pieces if they move out of place. They move very easily on the board and it may be frustrating for some.

Matthew's visual scanning abilities aren't as strong as his younger sister's and it doesn't help that he gets distracted easily. It was puzzling to me that he couldn't find the pieces he needed for the pattern he was working on even when I told him what shapes (and colors) he needed. Then I remembered that some activities weren't as overwhelming for Matthew if they were broken down into simpler steps.

To simplify the shape search for him, I had both kids sort all the pieces by shape/ color in separate piles. With all the like pieces together, he could now concentrate on counting how many he needed for the pattern he was completing instead of losing focus when digging through a jumbled pile of shapes.

We like to bring out this toy during queiter times in the day or when waiting for lunch to be ready. Elizabeth enjoys sorting the pieces by color as well as helping Matthew locate the pieces he needs.

Great for promoting mathematical thinking, creativity, visual scanning, shape and color recognition, and in our family, teamwork.

Matthew and Elizabeth's To-Do List Today

A few things to do today.

1. Clean up Mommy's chalk graffiti on the back deck using water on brushes and spray bottles.

2. Water the seedlings.

3. Have fun painting.

Toy Review Tuesday: Paper Weave

In my search for "Montessori method" activities and toys, I found "weaving paper" on page 40 of Teach Me To Do It Myself: Montessori Activities For You And Your Child authored by Maja Pitamic. I bought my copy from amazon.com.

Materials needed:
white posterboard, cut into 8-inch x 8-inch square
colored posterboard, cut into 3/4-inch x 8-inch strips (2cm x 20cm)
ruler (for measuring)
pencil (for marking cut lines)
scissors and cutter

Cut out alternating strips on the 8-inch x 8-inch square posterboard so you are left with a frame containing vertical bars of paper.

The weaving activity may still be too challenging for the younger ones, like Elizabeth. But she still found it fun to play with the colored strips of paper - naming colors and watching Matthew weave his strips of paper "over" and "under" the white frame.

Toy Review Tuesday: Spray Bottles

Warmer weather is here. I'm so thankful for it! It means we can finally play outside and enjoy some new scenery beyond the walls in our house. The kids have been enjoying (almost) daily picnics on our back deck.

Something else the kids like to do on the back deck is play with spray bottles. They both like playing with water so this activity is very enjoyable for them. They spray the glass door and the glass table in an attempt to help me clean. They spray the chairs, the new seedlings, the deck, and the bbq grill just for fun.

Today, I wrote the alphabet on our wooden deck with chalk and they had fun spraying the letters. Matthew identified each letter as he squeezed the trigger on the spray bottle. I see every squeeze of the trigger helping increase finger and hand strength.

And as much fun as they have spraying each other, I like to remind them not to, especially since Matthew tends to point the nozzle directly at Elizabeth's face - at close range. She usually asks me, "tell Matthew do not spray Lizbeth." Then she turns around, armed with the spray bottle and the naughtiest grin on her face.

Working with Scissors

One of Matthew's IEP goals at preschool is:

Matthew will increase his visual motor integration skills as demonstrated by holding spring open scissors and paper with both wrists in neutral position, following set-up and cut on a 4" long x 1/4" thick straight, curvy, and zig zag line staying within 1/2" of the line for 75% of data days.

Accuracy is not important to me at this stage although it would be an indicator of any improvement in his hand strength and visual-motor coordination -- two factors that we view as important to be able to do more precise fine motor tasks.

We have two pairs of spring-loaded kid-friendly scissors at home - brands: Fiskars and Maped. We got both pairs from amazon.com then I saw a pair of the Maped brand scissors at the local Dollar Tree store. Other adaptive scissors are available from stores like TheraPro (search for scissors on their site), Beyond Play, and other specialty/ therapy stores. Matthew currently uses the spring-loaded scissors because he still has a hard time using a scissors manually (without the spring). Other kids at his developmental stage may or may not have the same issue. Everyone's different.

Just last quarter, he needed hand over hand help with using a pair of spring-loaded scissors. His hand strength has increased since then. He didn't want my help the other day.



He's not a pro yet with scissors but he's determined and keeps working hard at it. For him, success with it (with anything) is a confidence booster and becomes a self-motivator to do more.

Toy Review Tuesday: Pop-up Pirate

Arrrr! Ahoy Matey!

This game is rated for kids ages 4 and up but even me 1-1/2 year old lassie, Elizabeth, likes to stick the swords into the barrel. It's another way to introduce basic colors and counting. Since Elizabeth is too young to understand the objective of the game, we usually make up our own game rules or simply have no rules except to have fun.



The plastic swords are a good size for pincer grasp practice for me 4-year old lad. The barrel doesn't stay put on the base when sticking the swords in so it presents a good opportunity to practice using two hands - one to stabilize and one to push the sword into the barrel. Aye, all hand hoay (all hands on deck) with this game!

Play time will depend on ye lads and lassies attention spans.

Savvy?

Toy Review Tuesday: Birthday Cake (Melissa & Doug)

Birthdays are a fun time for kids. Birthdays can also be a difficult concept especially for kids who may think it's their birthday at every party or kids who may be overwhelmed with all the activity and excitement and people.

The time-honored birthday cake ritual of singing "Happy Birthday" and blowing out the candles was a perplexing for Matthew when he was younger. He wasn't quite sure what to do about the candles until he was 3. And people singing the happy birthday song around him brought forth his lower lip with a downward curve. (Maybe he just thought everyone was off-key and that was upsetting to him??)

With many birthdays to celebrate in our family (with nearby relatives), playing with the Melissa & Doug Birthday Cake has completely helped him warm up to the birthday ritual. Both kids even like to turn the lights off after the candles are put on the cake. Then we sing the birthday song. The lights come back on for cake cutting and eating.



We like this birthday cake set because it is fun and durable. It also nice for counting, sorting, learning to follow directions, and imaginative play. I can see it used for simple sequencing also but we haven't tried it yet.

Integrating some more fine motor work into our birthday cake play, Matthew picks up candles and pieces with tongs.

Using Chopsticks

Incorporating some fine motor work into our meals, we use training chopsticks from amazon.com (Fred Party People Chopsticks, set of 6) for some food at the table. There are other kinds of training chopsticks available but this colorful set looked like the simplest to use and easiest to clean.

We started with green beans.

Matthew picked up and transferred green beans from the serving plate to his using the training chopsticks. Then he ate them with his fork. Not wanting to be left out, Elizabeth got her own pair of chopsticks too. She used chopsticks, fingers and a fork.

We've been using ice tongs for Matthew to serve himself salad from the salad bowl. He really enjoys being able to do it himself.

Related post:
Toy Review Tuesday: Tongs

Distract Her With Kisses

It was time for a morning snack. In her little toddler voice, Elizabeth said "no! no!" to yogurt and happily nodded "yes!" to eggs. Matthew was at school. She had me all to herself.

I got out the pan and started to take a few steps to the refrigerator to get the eggs. Elizabeth started whining and clinging to one of my legs. She wanted me to sit and play with her - immediately!

I scanned the area quickly, looking for a toy. There were none nearby. Aha! The old valentine chocolate sitting on our kitchen counter finally had a purpose.

I showed her how to sort by color, count, and pour. She discovered peeling the foil off all on her own.

Cooking the eggs turned out to be a peaceful, non-screaming few minutes. The Hershey kisses had her undivided attention. Even the cat thought it was entertaining.

If only it were this easy to distract her all the time... Maybe I should keep Hershey kisses as a handy distraction when I need to buy myself a little time. But that would be expensive and too much chocolate for me to eat. Real kisses are better - zero calories and priceless!

Toy Review Tuesday: Tongs

Pick up, transfer, release. It's harder than it seems especially for smaller hands and low tone.

Using tongs is one way to practice opening and closing the hand with the same motion used in cutting with scissors. This can also strengthen the hands for handwriting later on.

We use cheap plastic tongs with rubber-coated ends from the Dollar store and more expensive metal tongs from the bar supplies section at the grocery store.

The kids like to pick up small toys with them. Sometimes I make it a "pick up the color or shape game" using the foam shapes I made. Matthew concentrates and tries very hard. The rubber ends on the plastic tongs help provide gripping power to make the task more do-able. Elizabeth watches and then decides that poking the foam shapes with the metal tongs.

Doing a more meaningful activity is a more efficient way for Matthew to practice using tongs. He likes pickles. So I have him try to get pickles from the pickle jar and put them on a plate. It takes him a while but he can do it.

Big motivator + More persistence = More practice

Thankfully, he finds the challenge interesting enough to keep his attention and has not resorted to dumping the whole jar of pickles on the plate or reaching into the jar with his hand. Of course, if he's struggling with it too much and it's taking longer than he would like to get a pickle, then I help him hand over hand.

What's next? Chopsticks?

Note: Matthew has not developed a dominant hand yet. He uses his left more but he can still use his right. His occupational therapist (OT) at school has noted that he is showing a more mature grasp with his left hand. Nevertheless, we still offer objects to him at midline (center of his body) so we leave it up to him to choose which hand to use. This is done in the interest of not influencing handedness. It is up to him (his brain) to determine which side will become the dominant side, not up to us to influence.

Here is a short-list of some games with tongs/ tweezers:
Patch Bedbugs by Patch
Wok and Roll by I-Play
Avalanche Fruit Stand by Learning Resources
Operation by Hasbro

Toy Review Tuesday: Corrugated Castle

This carboard coloring castle was a hit at Matthew's birthday party. Kids from 17 months through 13 years enjoyed playing in the castle.

What's not to love? It's a fun place for a game of Peek-a-boo. Kids don't get in trouble for writing or coloring on the walls with markers. It's a great set-up for pretend play.

It came in 8 pieces with instructions. One of Matthew's uncles put it together at the party.

After the party, it was taken apart for us to take home and I set it up at home for more coloring and hiding fun.

At this time, the corrugated castle costs $34.99 on amazon.com. It was totally worth it for the party.

Another option is to make one at home with large, sturdy shipping boxes. I had made one before deciding to get the castle. I cut out a door on opposite sides and a little peep hole on another side. The peep hole is Elizabeth's favorite. Matthew and Elizabeth (and our cat) have a blast crawling through it, hiding in it, with it at home but would be too boring and unlikely to hold up well at a party with 13 kids.

We also bought the corrugated house but didn't have enough time to set it up at the party. We'll save it for a future birthday.