A perfect first friend, Dolly features wild, stringy, soft pigtails, long fuzzy legs with pink, shiny satin shoes, and a cheerful face for baby to explore. Her hair, hands and legs are easy to grasp for little ones looking to teethe on something or just hold and shake. Rattle her body or squeeze Dolly’s legs to get a squeak–giving multiple sensory experiences. Pop her heart out of the pocket or hide it for a peek-a-boo game. The little ring on her back insure an easy clip on ride in the stroller or car seat. Be sure to talk to Dolly or describe her features to build your baby’s language skills.
Sherry Artemenko, MA-CCC, is a speech-languge pathologist with more than 35 years experience and founder of Playonwords.com. The opinions expressed in this review are solely those of the author. “Squeaky Legs Dolly” was provided for review by International Playthings.
Tummy time takes on new meaning with this ultra soft, fuzzy circle of friends. Even a fussy baby can be distracted with the pop-up ladybug mirror surrounded by baby’s beloved tags. Start in the middle with a sky filled with a smiley moon, cloud, star and sun whose rays are non other than taggies. Let your baby go head to head with the crinkly cow, squeaking pig, or musical lamb. Each animal has taggie limbs, sweet faces and multiple textures and sounds to engage your child. Describe what your baby is looking at to get the full impact of language building input. Two padded handles make this blanket easily portable for parents whose arms are already full.Sherry Artemenko, MA-CCC, is a speech-languge pathologist with more than 35 years experience and founder of Playonwords.com. The opinions expressed in this review are solely those of the author. “Taggies Activity Quilt” was provided for review by International Playthings.
Watch baby’s face light up when he sees the newest touchy-feely Gloworm. With added sensory activities, this playmate offers a perfect-sized teether snail, a crinkle flower to crunch, and bumpy, clacking rings to soothe your teething child. Gloworm’s lit face attracts babies as they babble up a conversation with its friendly face. One little guy sized up the face and tried to put the whole thing in his mouth! What a compliment to Gloworm. Enjoy the glow only mode or switch on the playful songs or calming lullabies for day or night accompaniment. To build your baby’s language, describe the opportunities for fun as your baby explores Gloworm–”munching on the smooth, yellow snail,” “”slipping the snail into the shiny, green pocket,” or “squeezing the soft, pedaled flower.” Don’t talk down to your baby using overly simple words, but feed him rich vocabulary that will strengthen language skills and eventually influence reading.
Sherry Artemenko, MA-CCC, is a speech-languge pathologist with more than 35 years experience and founder of Playonwords.com. The opinions expressed in this review are solely those of the author. “Sensory Gloworm” was provided for review by Playskool.
Kids love to cuddle and check out faces so why not get snuggle and face time in one toy? With outstretched crinkle hands, this half ball of fun is asking for play. Strap the “Cuddly Kid Mirror” in the crib for baby entertainment, or prop him up for tummy time and crawl around exploration. Showing off his bright colors, fuzzy textures, knotted strings and bean bag legs, this buddy encourages visual, auditory and tactile investigation and is just plain fun to squeeze.
Alex Toys
Recommendated age: Newborn and above
Take your baby on a discovery trip “Round the Farm” with this cuddly, six-sided ball. Four bright contrasting faces await your little one as she rotates the ball to meet the frog, cat, pig and dog. Each face combines contrasting patterns, textures and colors to enterain baby and invite exploration. Fuzzy protrusions, for ears, tails, or feet, are easy to grab to rotate the ball to meet a new barnyard friend. A little squeeze on the ear brings on a ribbit, meow, oink or woof, corresponding to the animal’s face. Babies love a squishy ball that they can easily grab, roll or mainipulate to hear sounds, feel texutres, see faces, or strick their finger in a fuzzy hole. An inherent preference for faces drives baby’s curiosity to explore, and eventually “speak” to a face on this delightful ball of fun.
Cuddle up with this friendly-faced coupe, covered with soft plush and shiny geometric designed tags. A takeoff from the popular Taggies balls, this car packs more features for your baby to explore and parents to talk about, enhancing learning. Press the button on top to hear “beep, beep” and see his cheeks light up, grab the crinkly wheels, see your reflection in the mirrored bumper, play peek-a-boo with a puppy peering out the window or pull the string to start the motion. A combination of textures, vibrant colors, and sounds, this compact car is engineered to give kids plenty to investigate and parents many features to describe, feeding your child important language to encourage learning. His endearing face invites baby’s conversation, providing practice for future chats.
Research shows that babies love the human face, with all its unique angles, light and contrasting shadows, moving parts and eyes to engage.. Celebrating the simplicity of baby’s day–sleeping, kissing, giggling and playing peek-a-boo–this delightful oversized board book, Baby, Boo! features plump baby faces to match his activities. Using rhyme, rhythm, and short text, the book introduces a playful line, “wakey, wakey, sleepy baby,” while your baby explores the matching bigger than life face. Little ones reach out to the faces as if to discover a new friend. A surprise interactive peek-a-BOO brings on the laughter as well as it’s YOU, in a kid shaped mirror at the end.
To encourage language beyond reading this book to your baby, describe the pictures using expanded vocabulary such as his eyes are shut, he stretched his arm, puckered his lips, planted a kiss, laughed, listened or hid. Imitate and describe the faces as your baby touches the pictures.
Five Little Ducks disappear, one by one, ignoring mom’s call to come back to her Quack! A concise number book of subtraction, interactive touch and feel, rhythmic rhyme and bold graphics leads your baby through the circular cut-outs to reveal remaining ducks and flowers to count. Babies follow the adorable ducks, rocking to the rhythm of the verse, soaking up the rhymes and grabbing the cutouts to turn the pages. Revealing an array of concepts, this baby book takes your little one from her earliest days as a newborn listening to the rhythm of language, through her first year and a half, hearing rhymes, counting ducks and flowers, recognizing numbers, and finishing repeated phrases. This baby book has staying power with plenty of learning for many months.
Through simple blotches of color, author-illustrator Kathryn Otoshi creates a gang of personalities cleverly tied to their hues–quiet Blue, outgoing Orange, bright Green, outgoing Purple and hot-head Red. Don’t be thrown off my the apparent simplicity of her drawings and storyline. This book is a winner, rich in language, metaphors, concepts and life lessons.
Blue is content with himself until Red comes along, announcing, “Red is hot, Blue is not.” Blue flattens into a puddle of color, feeling diminished by this bully. His friends rally around to comfort Blue, but can’t seem to step up to Red and tell her to STOP! Undaunted, Red’s blob gets bigger and bigger, picking on the whole gang as they flatten, feeling “a little blue.” The number “1″ comes to their rescue and stands up to Red, refusing to back down, demonstrating the courage to face a bully. His bravery was contagious as each color declared their intent to stand up to Red, and became a tinted number. Each colored number wanted to count against Red, who started to diminish as his bravado was challenged. In a final twist of kindness, the gang called out to Red and invited him to “count” too, coming full circle into a heartwarming tale of inclusion.
This clever book can entertain and teach at many levels and ages. To the young preschooler, the story line reinforces colors and numbers, while to the older child, it launches a discussion of intimidation, resolving problems, and inclusion. Recognizing metaphors, discussing the use of size and shapes to represent concepts (sad, defeated, bossy, etc,) and relating the story to a child’s experience are recognized using this story to start the discussion.
Do you know someone expecting a Little Boy and need the perfect gift? Here it is–the best preparation for Mom and Dad to get ready for a blue bundle of energy. Through simple rhymes–”Little boy, so much depends on…a puddle to jump, sand to dump”–the author captures the charm and curiosity of a little boy who gets stopped by the intrigue of stomping in a puddle, examining a bug, dumping sand or creating a toy tower. The author cleverly introduces the boy’s cardboard box throughout the story, as the child transforms it from a vehicle on wheels, stepladder, pirate ship. parking garage and robot costume. Finally, the little boy and his dog take refuge in this homey box and fall asleep after a busy, creative day. A refreshing peek into a little boy’s day where the only play opportunities are nature and simple toys, this story celebrates a day of imaginative play without technology, reminding us how fun things are when kept simple!
