Season’s greetings from the Kruckenberg’s! It is hard to believe that we are in the month of December! The time of year for all the Christmas festivities, the time of year when you start seeing the Salvation Army buckets and the toy drive “Toys for Tots”. Which inspired this week’s blog title, “Toys for my Tot.” About my son’s favorite toys that he plays with.
Who doesn’t love playing with toys? As a child I didn’t have any interest in toys. Don’t get me wrong, I played like a child, just not with toys. My childhood was spent outside with just me, a notebook and my imagination. As a parent I am noticing the same characteristic in my son. That he doesn’t have any interest in the toys you would see any other child playing with. He would receive toys whether for his birthday or for Christmas, but he showed no interest in playing with them. It wasn’t until we started taking him to speech therapy where he would play with the toys there. That was when we realized there were specific toys he would play with, which are sensory toys.
You may be wondering, what are sensory toys? I had to research what sensory toys were myself. Sensory toys are toy’s that aid in sensory and cognitive development. Sensory toys are designed to stimulate the senses. For a child on the spectrum sensory toys assist in helping a child to remain calm and engage with their senses. There are several categories of sensory toys including vibrant color toys, noise makers, and tactile toys.
Category #1 Toys with vibrant colors
Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet. (ROYGBIV). This describes toys of vibrant colors. Toys with vibrant colors stimulate the sense of visualization. As well as helping keeps a child’s attention and encourages curiosity. For our son his favorite toys he plays with that have vibrant colors are a Rock a stack, which is the toy with color rings. As well as a Juxue spinning toy. These toys, the rings and the gears are vibrant in color.
Category #2 Noisemakers
Any parent with kids knows about noisemakers. The toys that when a child first gets its all fun until in the middle of the night when you get up and you hear that same toy going off. While there are many toys that make noise the kind that my son plays with are the ones that make music. No doubt my son loves music! His favorite toy that plays music is this penguin which dances, sings, and lights up. Which is sentimental because my husband’s favorite animal is a penguin.
Category #3 Tactile toys
When children begin exploring and being mobile you find out quickly that they touch anything and everything. Developing and cultivating the sense of touch. Tactile toys are developed for this sense. Tactile toys can be made of textured materials. Examples of tactile toys would be fidget spinners, sensory mats, or my sons go to a Pop it! The most popular tactile toy is a ball. With the material being spikey, stringy, or squishy.
Well, it has been fun blogging about toys, but all good things must come to an end. Don’t worry though I will be back next week with more fun. I hope you had as much fun reading about sensory toys as I did to write about them. Until next time I must go now to pick up my tot’s toys!