The Toy Industry Foundation, in partnership with Alliance for Technology Access (ATA) and American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) have released an updated toy guide for children with special needs. Here is the link:
Category: Toys Toys Toys
Homemade Flashcard Activity
This was an idea I got from Lyra’s TVI. I took pictures of a variety of toys and objects that Lyra was familiar with or played with regularly. To make them more durable, I taped them to poster board a cut them out. Then I put them into the plastic sleeves of some old photo albums I had, cut them out and then taped the end. They were those free photo albums they used to give me when I’d have film developed at Wal-mart. Continue reading “Homemade Flashcard Activity”
More Books and Toys
Here are some of our latest favorites for books and toys.
The first two pictures are of the Fisher Price Laugh & Learn Magnetic Cookie Puzzle. That name is entirely too long. 😛
Anyway, this is a really great SIMPLE puzzle with a fun musical reward.
This picture is of the Playskool Old McDonald Tractor toy. This is really good for eye-hand coordination practice. It plays music too…which is always a plus. 🙂
These first two books are touch and feel books. These two have a variety of “feels.” I’ve seen some touch and feel books that basically have the same fabric/material on every page, just making them different colors. Our copies also include braille text.
These next two are full of big bright bold pictures. The pages are simple and not too cluttered.
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Toy Information Links
Toy Ideas for visually impaired infants, toddlers, and preschoolers. -from Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired.
Toys, Glorious Toys! -by Jean Robinson, Family Support Specialist, Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired.
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Cheap, Old Fashion, and Homemade
Sometimes the best toys are not the most expensive or the fanciest. Often the simplest toys or non-toys provide the most enjoyment.
The first picture, a Fisher Price toy phone, is good for pretend play and fine motor development. Pointing is a fine motor skill and the little holes for dialing are the perfect size for little pointer fingers. We cut off the string that connected the receiver to the base to make it more user friendly. It was too short. You couldn’t hold the receiver up to your ear without lifting the base up off the floor.
In the second picture are just “pop beads.” These are good for just building overall hand strength and also hand-eye coordination. They were a little too difficult to pull apart, even for me, so I took a metal file tool and filed down the sides of the tip a little. Now they fit in the holes more easily and Lyra can actually pull them apart.
In the third picture is our modified shape sorter. There were too many shapes. First we put duct tape over all of the openings except the circle. Once she could successfully put the circle block in the hole, we uncovered the square opening too. Once she can do both of those, we’ll uncover another. We also taped the lid down to prevent her from just taking the it off to put the shapes in.
This goofy looking thing in the last picture is a cottage cheese container. We cut little slits in the top and pulled a piece of ribbon up through each of them. We tied knots on the other ends of the ribbons so she couldn’t pull them all the way out. The purpose of this homemade “toy” is to practice a pincer grasp. The pincer grasp is a very visual fine motor skill and often tough to master for kids with visual impairments. We were looking for various ways for Lyra to practice this, other than the typical, picking up cheerios. Her TVI gave us the idea for this.
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Toys Toys Toys
Lyra loves these toys and has used many of them in her weekly vision therapy. I hope to add some pictures eventually.
Glow Worm
Fisher Price Tap n’ Twirl Top
Little Tikes Tap-a-Tune Piano
Light up pumpkin wand (Halloween prop)
Happy Apple
bright blue and pink egg shakers
Fisher Price Touch and Tickle Round balls
Fisher Price Miracles & Milestones Musical Panda
Fisher Price Star Stacker- music and lights
wax paper
Ocean Wonders aquarium crib toy
Books:
Baby Faces by Margaret Miller
Black on White by Tana Hoban
White on Black by Tana Hoban
Feely Bugs by David A. Carter
The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
The Cheerios Play Book by Lee Wade
Fairy Numbers by Caroline Repchuk
If you are considering buying any of these toys or books, try iGive Shopping. They have many of the same online stores you would typically find these items, but when you shop through iGive, a percentage of your purchase is donated to NOAH or another charitable organization of your choice. Visit iGive for more info.
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work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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