Make-it-Yourself Felt Board

by Carrie Wells, Ed.D.
Have you ever looked at your craft supplies and gone...Duh! Why didn't I ever think to make that before? Yeah, that was me this morning. I have this cool die cut maker, I have a ton of felt, I have lots of cardboard, and I have a daughter who loves to mix and match different hair colors and outfits with the paper people I made using my die cut maker...um, why haven't I made her a felt board??

Make-It-Yourself Felt Board

Materials:

Piece of cardboard

Hot glue gun or craft glue

People die cuts (you could hand cut this, but that may be a bit challenging with felt)

Creativity

Scissors

Directions:

1. Cut the cardboard to the desired shape/size. Mine is about a 12" square.

2. Glue the background color(s) to the cardboard by gluing along the seam and wrapping it around the back. Glue along the edges to secure.

3. Cut various people, clothing, and scenery pieces out of felt. You can switch out pieces for each theme. I was thinking it would be really cool to make an alien scene by cutting people out of green and blue felt. A Halloween scene with different costumes and pumpkins would be so much fun, too! 

4. Endless play!

Valentine Play Date

by Carrie Wells, Ed.D.
Inspired by Pinterest, Lydia had an awesome Valentine's Day play date with her friend Brandon. 

Here's our party agenda!

I prepared a heart-shaped fruit salad.

First Lydia & Brandon made chocolate marshmallow pops.

 Then they made heart-shaped pizzas.

Next they made valentine cookies.

They each decorated one card for each other and one card for their daddies. 

They ended the play date with a gift exchange and hug.

Does this belong on the farm?

I decided to get out a train set, play farm, and bin filled with all different animals and people this morning. Lydia and I sat down together, set up the train around the farm, and played "Which do not belong?" using the people and animals. I would show her an object and ask "Does this belong on the farm?" If it did belong on the farm, we placed it around the farm.

 If it did not go on the farm, we placed it in the yellow bin. 

She really seemed to enjoy this activity and was able to get a lot of them correct. 

However, she was uncertain of a few. 

But it was fun to help her figure them out! Others, like Dora and Strawberry Shortcake, I allowed her to choose where to place them.

REMINDER: There are no rules to toddler play

I had to remind myself of something today. There are no rules to toddler play. Now, obviously, I don't want my daughter playing with a real stove or running around the house with a pair of scissors. She shouldn't throw her toys or hit people with them. But when it comes to imagination - there should be no limitations.

Let me preface the following by saying I tend to be kinda anal retentive. (My friends are probably thinking "Kinda?!")

So what made me think of this? Well, Lydia was playing with her Duplo blocks today. She had a set with different zoo animals. When she played independently, all she did was stack them all vertically. I sat down to play with her, and we made a zoo together. I got out the flat green base to build on, I placed the entrance to the zoo on one side of the green base, and I began to make different areas for each animal. The elephant had grass, the giraffe had trees, the lion had a tall wall so it couldn't escape, and the polar bear was surrounded by white and blue blocks to look like ice...er...until Lydia put an off-white block, a tan block, an orange block, an eye block, etc. WHAT?! Tan and orange are not ice-looking colors. Polar bears are not found in areas with those colors. What is she doing??

Oh, right, she's 2 years old. She's doing what 2 year-olds are supposed to do - Being creative! She's using her imagination, without limitations. While age may teach us to be more artistic as we learn to draw, paint, sculpt, etc. better, age also limits our imaginative creativity. Lydia doesn't know that polar bears live in the snow and snow is generally white, so the polar bear area in our fictitious plastic zoo should be white. She doesn't have those boundaries. Her play goes beyond what we know to be true. Why should my knowledge of "facts" and "rules" limit her endless imagination? It shouldn't.

So when Lydia laid the cookies on the pan out of "order" (you know, from left to right in rows), I had to stop myself again. Her cookies can go in any order. She doesn't have to worry about them touching one another while cooking or not being able to fit the entire batch on a sheet pan. She's pretending to make cookies. This doesn't even require a pan or objects that even resemble cookies.

For us parents who often limit our thoughts to those that are more concrete...

REMINDER: There are no rules to toddler play!

Review of the Big Toy Book

I contacted the generous people at The Big Toy Book to see if they could donate a toy to Abi's Place (the nonprofit where I work) that I could review for my blog. They responded by sending me the Baby Genius All in One Musical Band, which contains two shakers, a flute, 2 drum sticks, and a tambourine - all within a drum!

This super-cute instrument set is great for all young children, but is especially effective with children who have disabilities. When teaching our children, all of whom have moderate to severe developmental delays, it's often difficult to find toys that are motivating and interesting to them. Most of the toys that do interest them stimulate or calm specific sensory needs. That's what is so great about instruments - most of our children love music, and instruments allow them to make their own music. How does that help the teachers and children? Well, we can teach so many great skills using instruments as the teaching tools. Here are a few:
1. Following one-step directions: bang the drum, blow the flute, shake the tambourine
2. Imitation: the teacher taps the drumstick on the drum and the child imitates that action
3. Communication: for our children, communication usually begins when children are motivated to use their words to ask for things that they want - so they can learn to request music through words, sign language, or pictures

These instruments are so cute, with a child-friendly animal theme. Here's Ryan playing with one of the instruments during our interactive circle time:

Thanks to The Big Toy Book for allowing us to review one of your awesome products! The kids love their new instruments. The Big Toy Book also carries many other toys for children of all ages, including eco-friendly toys, bath toys, board games, baby dolls, action figures, and more!   They also have a great blog with guest bloggers addressing a variety of topics. Additionally, they host regularly-scheduled Twitter parties with really awesome giveaways. This week's Twitter party features Toy Story 3!

Guest Blogger on The Big Toy Book

I contacted The Big Toy Book to review a toy, not for my daughter, but actually for the non-profit organization where I work. You'll probably see several posts about Abi's Place. I work there not just because I need money (the obvious reason), but most importantly because we really do good work. We accept students who would not have the opportunity to reach their potential any other way. We provide them with high-quality educational and therapeutic services. Each child is assigned to teach teachers, who we train, and the child works with one teacher for a portion of the day and the other teacher for the other portion of the day. Everyone there has the cause in their hearts, and it shows - the child have made amazing gains!

So, I asked the nice people over at The Big Toy Book if I could review a toy for Abi's Place, and they are sending us a great set of instruments (I'll post the review as soon as the items arrive and I get to take some great photos of the kids using them!)  They also asked me to be a guest blogger, and they posted my article today. Check it out:

Building Language Skills in Children with Disabilities Through Play by Dr. Carrie Wells