New PAL Award winner, Toobers and Zots, by Little Kids, Inc. is great for speech therapy activities. Designed for 3 years and up, I brought my tub of bendable foam tubes, dots, holes and specialty pieces to therapy with kids from 3-6 years old and they dove right in, constructing props for pretend play. When working with a 3 year-old boy who is language delayed, the tubes and pieces were perfect for modeling some 2 and 3 word combinations, describing what we were building and needing. I held the big tub of parts, while my little friend asked, ‘Want tube, ” “Make hat” and “Push sword through.” We each made our pirate hats and swords and had a little battle for fun. There is so much to describe just in the set-up as we punch out the different sized dots, push tubes through and mix colors for eyes or wheels. A 5 year-old boy made a robot and proceeded to “transform” it into a vehicle, bending the tubes and adding wheels. You can also just use the pieces to plan and construct props for a story, re-tell of a book or anything kids can imagine!

Here is my full review.

Sandzini is a fun new product by Ohio Art (who brought us the Etch-a-Sketch). It’s a nice change up from Play-doh with a sandy consistency that kids just love. I brought the Ice Cream Parlor Set so kids started forming their treats–ice cream cones, ice pops and ice cream sandwiches, as they looked at suggestions on the box. It didn’t take long for them to start making turtles, fish and spiders who loved to lick the ice cream treats too. The set comes with a somewhat small amount of 6 colors of dough but two kids playing together had plenty of material to form their objects for pretend play. The product doesn’t crumble so it is relatively easy to clean up.

Here is my full review.

 

The above is solely the opinion of the author. Both products were provided for review by their manufacturers.