Hudson’s First Amazon Christmas List
How is it already that time of the year again? And how on earth is my tiny little newborn baby now 7 months and getting ready to celebrate his first Christmas?
Over the past year, I’ve been making a mental list of my favorite toys that I’ve used in therapy with littles that I wanted put on my own little guy’s first Christmas list. I have a lot of patients on my caseload who are 3 and under. What do I go for when they come into my room?
And more importantly, what do they go for when they come into my room? With kids this little, I think it’s so important to follow their lead in therapy. Play with what they want to play with, and then take advantage of all of the opportunities you can to model, expand, and create opportunities for language. Trust me, there’s a lot of them.
You do not have to have the biggest, newest, most expensive toy to set your child up for success with opportunities to develop their play and language skills. That being said, let’s talk about cause and effect toys.
What are cause and effect toys?
Simple! This is a toy that helps to teach your baby that in order to get a result, they have to take action. Early examples of this might be shaking a rattle to get noise, moving into something like pressing a button to get music. As your baby’s play and language skills develop, he will begin to see that his behavior results in an action or a response. This is so important for developing early communication skills! Similarly, your baby will eventually begin to use words to get desired outcomes. The earliest form of this looks like using a word to make a request and get what they want, or using a word to gain attention.
There are so many helpful articles and suggestions out there for awesome cause and effect toys. Here are some of my favorite cause and effect toys I want to add to my son’s collection and language targets that can be used with them!
What’s on Hudson’s Christmas List?
Why I picked it: Popper toys are great for teaching cause and effect. They help promote early language concepts like spatial concepts “in, out,” and directional terms “up, down.” They can also help littles learn how to anticipate an outcome.
Language Targets: “in, out, up, down, pop, go, big, little, elephant, ball, green, blue, red, more, my turn, your turn.”
2. PlayKidz Super Durable Pound A Ball Toy
Why I picked it: I have not met a kid who doesn’t love this toy. I use it all the time in therapy. Repeat: All. The. Time. Literally every day. I have it sitting in a crate out of reach of little hands, and it’s almost like it gives off a secret magnetic force that’s only detectible to small humans. Everybody goes for it. Everybody loves it. It’s so simple, right? It’s just balls with a hammer. This toy makes you win as a parent. Or as a therapist. Inexpensive, simple concept, with like a thousand language opportunities.
Language Targets: “up, down, on, out, go, pound, hit, more, ball, green, red, yellow, blue, my turn, your turn, roll, top, bottom, fast, slow.”
3. This fun bubble machine.
Why I picked it: Bubbles are a simple and easy way to target a lot of language skills! With your baby, you can blow bubbles and watch to see if they are visually tracking the bubbles. They may also react to bubbles popping, or reach for bubbles, all of which are skills that are important to develop before words emerge.
With your toddler, the possibilities are endless. Take turns blowing and popping, have them follow directions to perform different actions to pop the bubbles (e.g., jumping, kicking), work on early developing sounds (e.g., pop, blow, bubble, big, more, my turn, etc.), talk about where the bubbles went (next to the bed, under the chair, etc.)
Language Targets: “blow, pop, bubble, more, my turn, your turn, go, big, little, high, low, up, down.”
4. Fisher-Price Laugh & Learn Smart Stages Piggy Bank
Why I picked it: This is another favorite one in therapy – it’s simple, visually appealing, and musical which is always a great reinforcer.
Language Targets: “pig, oink, in, out, open, close, more, my turn, your turn, blue, green, yellow, orange, red,” and counting numbers 1 – 10.
5. Battat Pop-Up Pals Color Sorting & Animal Push & Pop – Up Toy
Why I picked it: Again, I LOVE pop-up toys. Any toy where you can press a button and have an immediate response is great for teaching cause and effect. There are so many fun varieties of this toy out there – I picked this one from Amazon because I like the animals and the contrast of the bright colors against the white. These toys are also great for reinforcing early language concepts.
Language Targets: “open, close, up, down, pop, blue, orange, purple, green, again, my turn, your turn, lion, mouse, bear, dog,” along with animal noises.
Again, there are so many great options for cause and effect toys out there and the opportunities to model language with these are endless!
Start by finding what toys work best for you and your little one. How many language targets can you come up with from just that one toy? If you get stuck, start by making a list. What can you do with it? What does it look like? I promise you’ll be surprised by all the language targets you can come up with!
What will you put on your baby’s Christmas list this year? Let me know!
