New Toys!

So I had quite a bit of free time when we first moved to North Carolina and I spent a good part of it surfing the internet. I started looking for some used toys for my work with kids- a habit passed on from Todd Houston, my boss/professor/friend. He would always show up with a toy he had found at a yard sale or on sale at the grocery store. So one day I hit the jackpot on Craig's List and found a Fisher-Price Little People farm and dollhouse, complete with all the animals/people and lots of fun extras! I had to drive an hour and a half to pick them up but I only paid $50 for all of it! (A find I think Todd would be proud of)

Here's some pictures of my goodies and a little tutorial on sanitizing used toys:

1. Wipe off with Clorox wipes or just soap and a rag.

2. Mix Clorox bleach with water according to directions on clorox.com : 3/4 of a cup of bleach to 1 gallon of water.

3. Place toys in liquid for 5 minutes (I flipped them over to do 5 minutes on each side)

4. Rinse off bleach

5. Let air dry

6. ENJOY!

Some of my other favorite toy finds are:

• A pizza listening game (came with 2 pizzas and a bunch of pictures of different toppings)
• Japanese erasers- I don't actually use them as erasers but they have ones that look exactly like small versions of food, animals, vegetables, and school supplies. Kids love them!
• A bowling set for $1 at Wal*Mart
• A Build-a-Bear with a set of boy and girl clothes-courtesy of my nieces. This is great way to hit language targets I would would work on with a doll but playing with a bear makes parents of boys less nervous than when I want them to play with dolls.
• Foam stickers found at Wal*Mart or Michael's.
• Wind-up toys! Seriously I think I use these in almost every single therapy session.
• Books: I have way too many of these according to my husband but I never feel like I have enough. I try to incorporate a book into every session I have so I can introduce children to literature and instill an early love of books. My personal favorites are anything by Mo Willems but I'm quickly finding that more repetitive books such as "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" are easier to use with my littlest clients

I don't know if anyone other than my "speechie" friends will enjoy this post but I just get so excited about finding the perfect toy to help children learn to listen and talk that I just had to share!