Open Ended Toys

Open ended toys... say what, toys that open? Ok so this is a common term used by teachers, particularly preschool teachers but it should be a common term to everyone involved in play.  These are not toys that open, well not literally open anyway but toys that open ones brain, imagination and creativity. Stay with me folks this is important! 

Open ended toys = toys that can be anything. Easy right?? Hmm well let me  give you some examples: rocks, sticks, blocks, jewels (one of my faves - these are the glass beads used for flower vases), scarves. With a little imagination all these items can be tons of different things. Neat hey?! 

This was our shelf of open ended recycled items at the preschool I worked in. Mainly used for art and dramatic play set ups. The children often would help themselves and pretend the items where whatever they needed them to be - money, binoculars etc.

A set up that could be whatever you wanted it to be. 

So what toys do toys that are not open ended look like? For Baby T's age group it is often the toys that have specific functions sometimes accompanied by lights and sound. The ones that you push buttons and things happen. So what if you push the red button and it says red in four different languages, it does not really engage the child beyond that. Others have a link to media and characters like Elmo - Elmo will always be Elmo it least once a child knows who Elmo is. As strange as it sounds Elmo has rules. Rules?? Well yes he is a defined character and try telling child who knows Elmo then tell them his name is Greg you will be met with 'no ELMO, ELMO, ELMO". 

push a button something happens - nothing wrong with it but it's not open ended

For older children batman as lovely as he is he is not super open ended. Sure you can make up a million stories about him but there are rules about batman and these rules are often pretty strict when it comes to kids. Let me give you a few examples of batman rules: he is a man, he is strong, he is a 'good guy', he is fast, he always wins.... you see what I mean. Having said that as a parent you can help create a more open ended Batman play by getting involved with your kids play and breaking some of the 'rules' but often kids get a little upset when you 'break' the rules and they correct you. 

So what is so great about toys that are open ended? For one they foster creativity. You have to come up with all the idea of what you are going to do with them, are their going to be rules, what are they etc. For the children who are playing together this requires dialog, communication often negotiation and other social interactions to explain what the items are and what you want to play. In the preschool I taught in there was never  your typical 'toy food' in the dramatic play area, it was a mix of random things. The purpose in this was so children had to imagine what they were going to turn these items into (eggs, berries, a sandwich or perhaps it was not a kitchen and it was gold?) and even better they had to communicate this to their peers and have a dialog.  I thought this was genius when my colleagues explained it to me and it was always funny to watch the expression of those who visited our school when they looked in our dramatic play corner filled with random things like plastic lids, bowls, pine cones etc. 

Open ended toys are timeless, by this I mean you can play with them infinitely through childhood or beyond and they will always be interesting as they can be a zillion different things. So as a mom who lives in a small apartment, needs to work on a budget and who would prefer to have a few quality toys that can do a lot -this is were it's at!  

There is nothing wrong with toys that are not open ended (hmm there might be ethical issues with some of them actually but they won't harm you! - I might get back to that another time, another blog post) but there is so much that is wonderful with toys that are open ended. I personally feel children lack open ended toys as they are not as flashy or gimmicky and often are not even viewed as toys. 

I am working on a post about our favourite toys to hopefully bring to you soon! 

Muffin Tin Fun

Who new a muffin tin could be so much fun!?

If you have one pull it out, put things in it and put it in front of your baby. I find Baby T has a blast putting things in and out, banging items in the tin and pushing the tin forwards and backward with items in or out of the tin. 

So what have we put in it so far: 

Toilet paper rolls (fun but Baby T also likes to eat cardboard!!!)

Blocks (super fun yet noisy)

plastic eggs 

Balls

Spoons

Stacking cups 

So what is Baby T learning? 

Spacial awareness (does that fit?? can I put two in??)

Hand Eye coordination 

Noise (and how much one can make!)

weight (heavy nor heavy) 

cause and effect 

The list goes on as always but there are a few things she is learning, 

Have fun! 

Magic Cloth Box

Seriously it has ben ages since I last posted! Wow time really does fly when you have a baby and sometimes it's hard to find the time to do 'extra' things like blogging!


Here is a post I have been meaning to do for ages! In fact I had this made up months ago and have had the pictures for a long time. Any way here it finally is! 

So Baby T loves pulling things out and examining them so I created this box to stuff things in and have her pull them out. Origonally a shoe box I cut a hole in the top and covered it with pretty paper (what can I say I like pretty things!). You could easily use an old tissue box but I would take the plastic off incase you child is anything like Baby T and likes to eat plastic (!?). I filled the box with scraps of fabric, wash cloths and some small play silks we have. 

I made the hole at the top big enough so I could put other random things in like spoons, blocks or a mixture of her toys. 

She loves it! 

I have found that she has been enjoying it more and more these days and even takes liberties to pull out of any bag around the house! I have Baby T help me with laundry these days since she likes pulling clothes out of baskets and bags so much. I also have taken to filling a paper bag with random baby friendly items which helps keep her occupied if I need 5 or 10 minutes to do something (like clean the toilet -yuck!). 


So what is Baby T learning during this activity?? 


Shapes
Spacial awareness (getting things in and out of the box) 
Fine motor and hand /finger grasping
Texture 
Colour 
Pattern  




Simple, easy and fun - give it a try! 

Quick Monday Exploration

Mondays are usually the day I buy produce and so it is also the day Baby T gets to explore what we bought and it's textures. 


Anything goes but I usually pick a few of what I buy just keeping in mind what can't be easily eaten at this stage (no teeth yet so there is less issues here for us). I make sure to wash it all as Baby T likes to explore everything with her mouth. Yum? 

                       

So there you have it something quick and easy that we do on a Monday. 

Eggs For Easter And For Fun!

You know those easter eggs you can get this time of year? The plastic ones that you can open up and put things inside... they are fantastic! Get them... seriously go out and buy some. These treasures are great and not just for easter they truly are great little open-ended wonders with endless possibilities! Due to the fact that they are open ended and you can do so many things with them I justify buying plastic for use as a toy. I am not a plastic lover for many reasons but I will save that for another post. 

So what to do with these beauties? Well I will share the first little exploration I created for Taya... SHAKERS! It really is too easy, fill them with what you have around the house. 

I filled them with Nutrios/cheerios, lip balm container, another small container and a wood ball that goes onto of our wooden stacker. I don't leave Baby T alone with these as some things might be choke hazards plus part of the activity is for us to explore them together... I'll explain in  moment. 

I placed the eggs in a muffin tin to make them easy to grab as without it they can get a bit roly-poly which is unnecessary frustration to start an activity with.  

At first I just let Baby T explore the eggs. Being a former preschool teacher I tend to run a commentary on what she is doing when we explore things together and that goes something like this; "what's that Baby T?", "are you picking up the purple one?". " is it heavy" etc etc. This keeps me engaged but more importantly it helps develop her language and puts labels to things and helps make meaning out of what she is doing.  

After a little exploring on her own I suggested shaking the eggs, which she did. Each egg had a different weight and sound so we talk about that for a bit. She then did some more solo exploring. 

 One of Baby T's favourite way to explore things is of course her mouth. Yum?


A few other things that you can do with the eggs: 
Bath time toys
Sand toys 
Filling and pouring toys (use sand, water, rice- best with kids that don't put everything in their mouth!)
Hid and seek toy (use open eggs and hide items underneath some of the halves- great game) 
Playdogh- great for cutting or filling 
Dramatic kitchen play
Dramatic play scenes 


What would you do with the eggs??? Would love to hear your ideas and try them!


Hope you enjoy and have fun with these! 

Sicky sick sick

So Baby T was sick..... for two long weeks and that's why the blog has been quiet. It was a pretty bad cold this time, a long persistent type of sickness complete with a junky chesty cough and a river running out of her nose. Well its bad when it's your first baby and your stuck at home in social isolation. 

Baby T, poor thing, was super clingy which is totally understandable, who wouldn't want extra comfort when their sick? To cope I wore her a L-O-T in the ring sling and the ergo. We even mastered the backpack carry in the ergo out of necessity to get some things done and out of boardroom! We had dance parties everyday with her in the ergo...good thing she loves music and dancing! Sadly her nighttime routine was thrown out the window. No longer would she go down at night sleeping soundly only waking to feed. No-oh- no Baby T needed me to be right next to her for comfort. So there I was going to bed with her at 7pm every night (thank goodness for my new itouch!). When I tried to sneak away she sensed it almost immediately, she caught on to my stealthy getaways and began laying down booby-traps (in the form of a leg or an arm strategically placed) so that if I dared move it she would know -smart  little bugger! Her eating routine also changed, though she was still keen on breast milk she was off her solids for a few days. 

So there we were in social isolation as baby T's nose ran like a river and coughed as if she was a 60 year old smoker. This meant no playgroups, no play-dates (coffee dates for me), no mom's group just me and baby T hanging out for TWO WEEKS. It sucked but its what you do so that others don't get infected. 


Thank goodness baby T is mostly better and we are able to resume our activities and socialize!!! She also is back on her old sleep routine (thought the time change has made it a little different) and she is eating like a pro again!


A few things helped us out while she was sick. First was our vaporizer which transported our room to humid Indonesia (luckily Mr and I grew up there so it was almost nostalgic!)  but it did help baby T to breath. Making homemade vapour rub (use olive oil as base, add drops of lavender, eucalyptus and murtle essential oils) and put it on her feet at every diaper change.... who knew vic or this vapour rub works when you put it on their feet!! 


The next few days I will post some new activity/toy ideas. Thanks for listening and if you have suggestions on what to do when baby is sick please leave a comment... it might help next time, cause there will be a next time. 

Wood Discovery Box

Having noticed that baby T has started to examine object more intently often picking up specific items of interest I decide it was high time I put together a discovery box for her.  The idea is to have a box of items that she can explore and pull out one by one, dumped, whatever she wants. I choose her first box to be filled with wood items. 

Included in our box is as follows:

Haba rattle (thirft store find)

wood worm (family gift)

2 colour wood blocks (craigs list find)

2 natural wood blocks (http://www.etsy.com/listing/62481382/organic-babys-first-blocks-natural) 

1 wood spool (IKEA)

1 wood spatula (IKEA)

2 pastry brushes (dollar store)

melissa & doug rainbow stacker pieces 

1 wood car (educo)

Baby T is loving this box and spends lots of time looking at each piece and figuring out what you can do with it. It is the only toy(s) that have been out for the past two days (ok except her new rattle ball) and she has yet to get board with it. We play with them together were I spend time talking about the items (square, round, colour, heavy, general commentating of what she is doing with them). Baby T likes it so much she lets me do what I need to do(whilst she is in my eyes view) which she normally is not super keen for me to do.  

Her exploring the items is helping her develop ideas on  shapes, weight of different object, filling and emptying, colours, taste (yes she mouths each piece!), soft, hard, gravity (when they get dropped), sound (again when dropping), texture, plus so much more. The activity also helps her developing motor skills in grasping, handling objects between two hands, hand eye coordination plus more. 

My goal is to create more discovery boxes for baby Tsuch as a music box, fabric box, kitchen box, natural objects box, a mixed box.... the list could be endless. Eventually it would be nice to rotate the boxes like I rotate her toys. 

The idea of using random items for children/babies to play with in a treasure box/basic idea is not new, it probably is as old as time. How many times you have heard someone say 'I let my child play with the pots and pans' I have heard it many times. It is no surprise that children and babies love random daily objects, they are trying to figure out their world and therefore strive to explore it. This need to figure things out often means that the toy remote control or phone you give your child is no match for the real thing - funny that! This concept does have a name, Heuristic play, Heuristic what! Big name but the idea is to give children opportunity to experiment with a wide variety of non-commerical objects. 

I hope this inspires someone to try it out. Keep in mind to be close by to your child when they explore, choose items wisely and for their ability.