Favorite learning tools/toys?

Re: Favorite learning tools/toys?

• mcmann05 member

  March 2011

  fredalina:

  Puzzles!  Puzzles are the best!  Shape sorters are awesome, flash cards are fun, but puzzles and books are what we do every day.

  What flash cards do you use? DD only has one puzzle so maybe I should invest in a few more! She has awesome fine motor skills but lacks in the verbal area so I want to encourage that. She's also highly uncoordinated in the physical department(think walking and falling A LOT) and I wondered what we could do work on that? Any ideas?

  (Waves "Hi" Fredalina, I remember you from the adoption board, these are my foster children)

  

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• HockeyWife4Life member

  March 2011

  Check and see if you have a Lakeshore Learning store in your area.  It is a store the sells all sorts of learning materials and supplies for teachers and the public.  I found a ton of great learning toys and books there for DD that I would never have found anywhere else.  They have a website too.  You can shop by catergory or by age which makes it even easier to find age-appropriate items.

  www.lakeshorelearning.com

   

   

  
  
  
  
  

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• superaunt member

  March 2011

  fredalina:

  Congrats on the foster babes! 

  Her flash cards are Sesame Street; they were a gift from her brother last Easter.  She's only just getting to where she likes them at all. 

  Target has a 4 puzzle bundle in a wire rack for like $20, and TONS of nice wooden puzzles.  We love them so much!  They also have a fishing game, with a little fishing pole with a magnet, and the fishies (wooden puzzle) have little metal things in the middle.  That's awesome for fine motor skills, and we also play the "what color is that fish?" game.  One day we couldn't find the puzzle and she ran around with the pole for about 15 minutes saying "Fiffy!  Fiffy!"  i bought her a new one lol.  It's like $5.

  i mentioned this in a previous post.  Cut some shapes out of construction paper and put them on the floor and run and jump on a shape and call out what it is "RED SQUARE!"  Then once she kind of knows the shapes/colors, you can call it out and have her run to it as fast as she can.  That would be great for both physical and verbal.

  Coloring with crayons is great for fine motor skills, sidewalk chalk is awesome for gross motor skills.  You can lay out different textures on the floor and have her walk on it; that's good for gross motor skills also.

  man, i wanna play at your house!! : )

  
  click the pic (blog)
  
  

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• HockeyWife4Life member

  March 2011

  Here are some of DD's favorite toys right now:

  Color Rings Sorting Board

  Stack and Count Learning Board

  Fantacolor Junior

  
  
  
  
  

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• mcmann05 member

  March 2011

  You ladies rock! Thanks!

  

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• sapphire angel member

  March 2011

  mcmann05:

  She's also highly uncoordinated in the physical department(think walking and falling A LOT) and I wondered what we could do work on that? Any ideas?

  While LO was still pretty wobbly, I helped her to dance and wave her arms and stomp her feet to music, either a fun upbeat CD or something catchy like Micky Mouse or Dora on TV. I gradually used less and less pressure to move her to dance and she picked up the slack. We did this every day of the week and sometimes 3-4 times on weekends. She still dances almost every day without any encouragement. We are working on jumping now.

  The PP who suggested the construction paper shapes on the floor would probably be a good one to try. I'm going to grab some dollar store construction paper this weekend for us to simply do colors with. We'll add shapes later. 

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