One thing I love about being part of the Learning Resources testing team is that I get to try out so many cool toys and games with the boys. However, I always try and make sure that they’re relevant to Toby or Teddy’s stage of development and question whether they’re actually going to be any help.
I’ve made no secret of the fact that Toby’s speech and understanding is not where we would expect but he’s coming on in leaps and bounds and, in part, I really think it’s down to how he plays. His play needs usually come in the form of being outdoors, tactile and require little thinking for now but I’ve wanted to introduce a game or a toy that really gets him thinking, particularly as he’s about to start his reception year at school in September.
Learning Resources Fox In The Box
Fox In The Box is a positional words activity set which is great because when we last spoke with the speech therapist our next aim was to get Toby to understand positioning. Ideally this would be done in an every day scenario rather than with a game but sometimes Toby needs to have his attention on something specific rather than just being told it as and when. I’m finding that by using this game he’s understanding where and how things should be placed under instruction and, while he’s not totally there yet, there has been significant improvement.
The Fox In The Box set has 4 staple objects, each of which rhymes with five square cards. There are 40 double-sided activity cards and one double sided spinner. There are so many ways to play this game and it’s totally dependent on the level of understanding your child has which will determine how far you can go with it. The idea of this game is to incorporate wordplay with following directions and learning positional words. Not only that I really enjoyed that Toby started to understand that the staple object rhymed with the five cards he had to position; for example the staple ‘box’ rhymes with locks, socks, rocks, clocks and fox.
I first got Toby to name all of the objects on the square cards just so he was familiar with what was coming up in the instruction, although these are pictured on the activity cards. We then laid out the central items and decided to pick one to focus on. After that, Toby selected all the pieces that rhymed with it and then flicked the spinner so we knew where we needed to position it.
Some of them were a little bit awkward such as ‘in the tree’ as it was a bit of a balancing act but we had fun nonetheless. His focus did stray after a little while but we know Toby is only happy to play to someone else’s agenda for around 10 minutes and then he wants to do his own thing. I allowed him to explore the set and let him familiarise himself with it so that when we got it out again he would probably know what we’d be doing.
This is a great set and is wonderful at developing so many different areas such as following directions. Giving directions is one of Toby’s fortes when it comes to his friends so I’m sure in time this will come too. Describing the placement of objects, expanding and using new vocabulary and building recognition of sight words is also part of this set’s development features.
I think it’s well made, well thought out and is great for a rainy day activity if the kids are up for a bit of educational fun! Ted was watching intently the whole time and I think he was interested in what we were doing so it’ll definitely make for an interesting activity when he can be slightly more involved.
Learning Resources Vocabulary Photo Cards
This little box of photo cards is great at helping to expand vocabulary. The box houses flashcards which include keywords from science, math, language and general knowledge. The thing I like most about these is that the pictures aren’t so cartoony. They’re real life images and so I feel that this is helpful when it actually comes to applying the vocabulary to real life.
We all know that while cartoon images are much better at engaging children, they can’t always transfer it to a real life image. The vocabulary photo cards set is colour coded and divided by tabs so if you’re focusing on a particular subject or area then they’re easily located. The cards are double sided; the first side showing the image and the second side has a short sentence which incorporates the word into a simple sentence.
They’re suitable for ages 5+ but with Toby starting school at just turned 4 there’s no reason he can’t be looking at these. In fact, I think they’ve been really helpful with his every day words and his vocabulary has gone from a few words to a whole library and he’s even talking in sentences a lot now.
At home these are great for testing, making word walls or telling a story and just a general every day activity if that’s what Toby picks out of the box. Teddy’s interested to see them too and he does tell me a few of the words on there that he already knows and can apply which is so good to hear.
They’re the perfect pocket filler for holiday too, so pop them in the car and when the kids are saying they’re bored, you can always whip these out!
*I was sent these products in return for a review. All views and opinions are my own.