The Power of Play

When my first son arrived 16 weeks prematurely we quickly learned that our journey wasn’t going to be easy. At 8-months-old he was accepted into a program in our city that was designed to help him meet his milestones. Each week his therapist would come to our house with a basket full of toys for a play session to set the ground work for proper development.

Because the program receives limited financing she often bought her own toys or used many that had been her childrens. This is when I learned that if a toy was designed to be played with 5 ways, his therapist would find 3 more creative ways. Basic skills like stacking, matching and sorting did not come easy to him . Toys like the Fisher-Price Little Superstar Classic Stacker, the Laugh ‘n Learn Piggy Bank and the Fisher-Price Cookie Shape Surprise helped improve his fine motor skills, while teaching him shapes and sizes.

Along with brand name toys, she would also bring household items that could also be used for learning like large buttons that could be sorted through a slit cut in a frosting container, dice that could be stacked in different patterns and juice can lids that could be ‘fished’ with a stick and magnet to be placed in a coffee tin.

For him, this simple play was the perfect way to develop his creative and fine motor skills and it showed us to think outside of the box when we were looking for ways to teach him new skills.

“Disclosure: I’m part of the Fisher-Price Play Panel and I receive special perks as part of my affiliation with this group. The opinions on this blog are my own.”

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