Toddlers are drawn to running water. Since the best part of bath time is playing with the stream as the tub fills up, imagine the investigating going on with the “Flow ‘n’ Fill Spout” as it keeps the water flowing after the tap is turned off. Submerge the little pump under the water and suction the spout anywhere in the tub for continuous streams of water play. Little ones quickly learn to start and stop the flow by pushing the face, and experiment with the three friendly-faced cups, spinning a propeller, creating a shower and revealing a surprise pop up friend. Teaching the language of empty/full, heavy/light, start/stop, on/off, up/down, and floating/sinking, this joyful distraction makes scrubbing a dirty toddler a little easier.
Yookidoo Flow ‘N’ Fill Spout
Recommended age: 9 months and up
Kids lined up for a turn on Taggies’ newest giraffe rocker, swinging a leg over his sturdy, plush back and hanging on to the handles for a lively ride. Just the right size for a one to three year-old, this playful friend is adorned with bright colors, varied textures, crinkle ears and patterned taggies to amuse the youngest ones while the older toddlers can saddle up and hang on to the mane of ribbons. A plush, huggable friend with a cock-eyed grin, this giraffe leaves the fun and creativity to your child–no batteries needed. He’s low enough to the ground but life-size for kids to invite him into their land of imagination. Don’t be surprised if he is asked to join the picnic or play house. Watching a one-year-old greet him with a morning hug, I know this giraffe can serve to expend rockin’ energy or just be a hang around pal in the playroom.
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.
Speech Pathologists, by profession need to be creative people, when working with children to build their speech and language skills, making the sessions so much fun that their little clients have no idea they are “learning.” In the case of I Can Do That and I Can Say That by Dr. Suzy Lederer, a professor of speech-language pathology with over 25 years experience, these inviting, educational, research-based, books were both authored and illustrated by speech-language pathologists.
Simple, clear stories aimed at children learning beginning vocabulary, gestures, sounds and language, these books use the strategies that speech pathologists seek in a book. Lists of target nouns and verbs, their corresponding signs, short rhyming lines, repetition of vocabulary, invitations to imitate in gesture and word, simple drawings and layout to limit distractions, bold-faced single words to encourage pre-literacy, and a quick pace, contribute to the magic of these stories. As therapists, we must constantly adjust our materials to meet the needs and interests of our little clients, providing stimulating and refreshing content. I Can Do That and I Can Say That invite, amuse and teach the child in a useful context.
Children are drawn in by the story’s simplicity and can’t help but join in the repetition of core vocabulary while pretending to eat, drink, hug, or kiss. My little testers enjoyed the kiss the most, anticipating and slobbering on the glossy page with delight. Answering yes and no questions and practicing greetings are included in the stories too.
Research shows that play and reading fosters language development in children. These books encouraged interaction and play, as an active 19 month-old sat on my lap through both stories in a book, spontaneously saying the sounds while looking at the animals quack, moo, meow, and woof. Acting out the verbs, brought in an element of pretend play, encouraging gestures and higher language function.
As an added feature, an interactive CD-ROM for your PC is included in both English and Spanish.
One mom declared these hard covered books so nice that they belonged in “supervised reading.” When I asked her to clarify she said, “I wouldn’t leave them out for him to rip the pages. They belong in the special Mommy and Me section of his bookshelf!” She clearly enjoyed reading the books as much as her son delighted in hearing them.
Wilbur doesn’t get it. He loves fancy clothes. Why do naked mole rats have to miss out on dress up? Who made the rules? Scooped up by his colony of critical mole rats, he is taken before the great portrait of Grand-pa, a revered titan to nakedness. Unconvinced, Wilbur continues to question, “Why not wear clothes?” Frustrated, his fellow naked mole rats appeal to Grand-pa who proclaims to his shocked subjects, “Why not?” Clothes don’t hurt anyone and can actually be fun. Given this new choice, some mole rats begin to sport new fashions and others prefer nakedness, but all are united in fun. This tale of inclusion and questioning the rules is delightfully illustrated by Mo Willem’s trademark lined characters. Simple facial lines change a rat’s expression from a “yuck” to a “Eeeeewwww,” leaving you laughing at his antics.
Use the Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed to start a discussion about rules–rules at home or school. What is the difference between unfair and unnecessary? What makes someone different? How should we treat them? What makes me different?
Every speech-language pathologist yearns to grab a bag of goodies that will amuse, entice and teach their preschoolers the foundation of language, building the basics for communication and literacy.
“Come Learn With Me” is my goody bag of choice! Use it yourself and share it with parents. Save the precious time of collecting props and pictures and unzip this set of books, objects and pictures to begin assessing and teaching receptive and expressive language and cognitive skills. Clearly the authors’ 30 years of combined early childhood experience is evident in this well organized, complete, simple to use tool with step-by-step lessons. They have anticipated developmental stages and what would be most useful to stimulate them.
Each area of development—receptive and expressive language and cognitive development—is broken down into 5-6 skills, progressing from the easiest to the hardest, with complete instructions on how to teach that skill beginning with ages that it is developing, prerequisite skills, sample objectives, baseline data, how to increase that skill and prompts, including modifications for children with visual or physical limitations. With each skill so clearly defined and broken down into activities, parents can easily utilize this manual and kit too. Parents often ask me, “What should my child be doing now?” I could easily refer to the developmental milestones and show what tasks were appropriate for their child’s age.
Therapists, teachers and parents have unlimited options with the bags of vehicles, food, farm animals, and function objects. Everything is kid-sized so they love to play with the objects, while the five books provide simple, colorful, cartoon drawings within the categories of things to ride, on the farm, in your house and moving out and about. With increased emphasis on data collection, therapists can easily record responses in the front cover of each book, using dry erase pens. The illustrations in the books as well as the 66 individual pictures of objects, animals and people by category, are a strength of this teaching tool. Clear enough to keep it simple, but just enough detail to identify the picture; these punchy drawings attract the child. The thick laminated, interchangeable pictures are the right size for a child’s hands while the thrill of ripping off the Velcro and sticking the picture on to the page is just the interaction needed to keep kids engaged.
The simple backdrop of book pages provides the flexibility we want in teaching preschoolers language skills. Kids can identify vocabulary, follow directions, answer questions, and create their own stories as they place their picture discs on each page of the books, interchanging the drawings to create unlimited stories as the groundwork for understanding and using vocabulary, grammar, and concepts. The inherent adaptability of this teaching tool is evident in the fact that I use it with children on the autism spectrum as well as with language and articulation delays or disorders.
Although parts are offered separately, my recommendation would be to buy the whole kit, ultimately saving money by giving you more flexibility and options for language learning.
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!
Being grumpy is a lot of work. Mr. Fish can’t seem to be cheered up by his convincing pals, Ms Clam, Mr. Jelly (Fish), Mrs. Squid or Mr. Eight (legged octopus). In spite of the efforts by his best-intended buddies, this dreary, sulking fish is convinced he is doomed to a life of mope. An unexpected visitor appears to plant a kiss on our prince to get this grump out of his slump. This charming tale, The Pout-Pout Fish, is filled with strong vocabulary, rhythm and rhyme with stanzas to be sung with your little one.
Tips to Build Language and Literacy:
Model putting words to your emotions throughout your daily experiences. “I’m frustrated, I can’t get this lid open” or “I’m tired and grumpy. I need a nap.” “Please be patient, I can’t help you right now.” Identify and name emotions in stories that you read aloud to your child. “The little girl is selfish—always wanting her own way” or “Grandma is disappointed in her behavior.” Brainstorm words that describe the main character and see how many you can list. After reading a story to a first grade class, I collected fourteen words to describe the “bossy, impolite, ungrateful” little girl. Our little pout pout fish is “glum,” “mopey,” “dreary,” with an “unattractive trait.”
Point out repeated words that are isolated in the text, “Blub, Bluuuub, and Bluuuuub!” Your child will begin to associate the sound with the letter as you stretch out the word and even “read” the word next time you encounter that page.
