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Good morning! Sofia is going to her first little girl birthday party this weekend. While shopping for the birthday gift it really got me to thinking about what makes a good toy for toddlers. Of course, we want it to be engaging, and really promote them making sounds and eventually words. I started to think about the toys that my son uses in speech therapy.
I should probably take a step back. I haven’t really talked about him going to speech therapy on here. Well, when my son, Pookie turned two and wasn’t saying very many words, or putting together two and three-word phrases on a consistent basis my pediatrician suggested he see a speech therapist. At the time it was a huge blow to me as a parent. I felt like maybe I wasn’t doing something right, but at the end of the day, it’s a type of tutoring to help him. And that is always good. These are all toys the speech therapist has used with Pookie to promote sounds, words, and sentences. I promise I’m going to explain the why for each toy. If you have any questions please send me a message. I’m totally an open book.
Alright so this list is a little long, but that’s because I explain why I chose each toy, and examples of what we either would or already do with the toy.
Toys to promote speech in toddlers
1.Fisher Price Suprise and Sounds Home: This is a great toy because you can say work with them on following instructions and making the sounds for boy and girl. Boy is a really good sound for them to work on. You can narrate them putting the girl and boy toys in the house and out of the house. Narrating everything is super important.
2.Pop The Pig: This is hands down one of Pookies favorite toys when he’s in speech therapy. He loves it so much that he’s getting it for Valentines Day. We work on saying put in a lot and saying take out. He loves that when it is all the way filled the pig’s tummy pops open. He laughs so hard. I’m a big believer that anything that adds a little extra fun to learning is good.
3.Fisher Price Little People Farm Animals: These are really good for working on animal noises and animal names. A lot of times when you work on the farm animal sounds it turns into being able to say words soon after.
4.Melissa and Doug Tunnel: Toys like this are great for working on playing peek a boo with your toddler. They are also great for narrating in, out, and bye bye when they go in the tunnel toy. You can also point out the bright colors. It’s amazing everything that they take in.
5.Playskool Mr.Potato Head: This toy is really good for working on naming body parts. It’s a good toy for narrating in, out, push, and pull with the parts as well. My son loves this toy. I have to buy another one because my dog ate a few of the pieces.
6.Audrey Hepburn Book: Reading to them is so important. It may seem like they aren’t listening but they absorb more than you think.
7.Gazillion Bubbles: Bubbles are great for working on using the muscles in their mouth for blowing. It sounds a little crazy, but that helps strengthen their mouth so they can start making sounds and talking. This is another really good activity to narrate with works like up, pop, more, all done, and uh oh when the bubble pops. We play with bubbles a lot in the spring in summer.
8.Melissa and Doug Toy Kitchen Accessory Kit: This is great for making the kitchen cooking sounds, eating sounds, and naming food.
9.American 3 in 1 Plastic Toy Stroller: Toy strollers are really good for narrating things like sit down, in, go, fast, and slow. This is on my list for Sofia.
10.Minnie Mouse Hide and Play Tent: This toy is good for working on simple phrases like knock knock, hi, bye, and where are you. I love trying to introduce new phrases in a fun atmosphere.
11.Fisher Price Little People Noah’s Ark: Pookie use to play with this in speech therapy so much that I thought we needed one for the house so I could work on everything the speech therapist was working on. This is another toy that’s great for working on them working on simple directions, animal sounds, and understanding putting the animal in and out.
12.Green Toys Blue Race Car: Cars, trucks, and train toys are great for working on sounds like vroom, beep, honk, stop and go. Pookie has a lot of these Green Toys and absolutely loves them. I love that they don’t have any hard edges like some toy cars and trucks. Pookie cut his face last summer while playing with a toy truck outside. That toy is hidden in his closet. Not even gonna lie seeing my baby with a cut on his face scared and freaked me out. The toys are all made from good materials so no concern if they want to take them in the bathtub or something.
13.Play and Learn Shopping Cart: This is another toy that is great for narrating push, go, more, in, out, bye bye. This is one we want to get my son soon because he loves using the customer in training shopping cart so much at the grocery store.