Black Friday Toy and Game Round Up

Hi there! I hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and was able to reflect on all of the blessings in your life! Now that Thanksgiving is over, Christmas is in full swing! I’m here today to give you some ideas for gifts that can help promote or improve speech/language skills. I’ll share a few toys for younger children and games for older children, too! Lately, I’ve been reviewing toys and giving ideas for how to use them to help with your child’s speech/language skills. If you’ve missed those, you can find the posts (as well as amazon affiliate links to buy the toys that I’ve reviewed) on the farm, slide, books and the kitchen/grocery store. I still think each of those toys are GREAT for working on speech/language skills. But if you needed a few more ideas, keep reading!

Here is a wonderful handout from the University of Texas at Dallas explaining different types of play and how to help as a parent. Now… onto the toys!

1. Blocks

Blocks are a simple and easy toy to promote creativity, imaginative play and other, more simplistic speech and language skills, too! We bought C some foam blocks (the first ones linked) when he was 6 months old. He loved the different colors and we loved that he wouldn't get hurt because the blocks are so soft. Now, Santa may or may not be bringing C some mega blocks. He's already really into building the tallest towers that he can. You can target simple prepositions when building towers (up, down, on top, next) and other prepositions if you’re making a city. You can target symbolic play skills by building bridges and using a block to stand for a car. The possibilities are endless!

2. Little People sets

Little people sets are some of my (and C’s) favorite toys! Little People sets are appropriate for 1 year and up. They are great at preteaching new experiences (like going on an airplane and going to the zoo) in an age appropriate and play based way. You can sequence and help your child know what to expect before an unfamiliar situation. You can also help children reflect after their experiences through play (a milestone for 18-24 month olds).  Little people sets are also great for introducing new vocabulary, practicing animal sounds and describing. With so many different themes and sets, the possibilities are endless!

3. Dress up clothes

Dress up clothes are another great way to target pretend play skills. You can help your child to pretend to be different helpers, a great way to target specialized vocabulary words specific to each profession.

4. Fishing

I love fishing games...almost as much as my preschool students loved them! This little fishing game is great for following directions, targeting colors and simple counting.

5. Pop a Pig

This is, hands down, one of my favorite games for preschool children! It’s great to target turn taking, an important social (and life) skill. In the game, you roll the dice and it tells you a color. You or your child will choose the matching color of hamburger (great for targeting adjective+noun phrases) and push the pig’s hat the number of times on the bottom of the hamburger (great for early counting skills). The pig’s belly gets bigger (great for talking about cause and effect), and eventually the pig’s belly pops! Such a fun game with so many language targets.

The next two games are more appropriate for elementary students, but are some of my favorite for my speech room.

6.  Headbanz




My speech students ALWAYS choose this game when they earn that privilege. In the game, each player has a headband with a card on it. The game is written for a player to ask all of the other players yes/no questions about his or her card to guess what is on their card. Playing the game as written is great for targeting asking questions and syntax. It’s also helpful for inferencing skills… using the answers of those questions in order to make an educated guess about his or her card. If your child struggles with these skills, model your thinking out loud (i.e., I know that my picture is a type of transportation that is used on a farm. I know that cars, trucks and airplanes are types of transportation but they aren’t used specifically on a farm. I also know that tractors are types of transportation and they are helpful on a farm. I think my picture must be a tractor). Another way to play is to describe each other’s cards by giving a distinctive feature, the object’s function and class. This is a helpful vocabulary skill and will help your child practice giving definitions of words in a way that is concise and makes sense.

6. Apples to Apples Junior

Another favorite game! Apples to Apples is great for targeting describing and vocabulary skills. It requires kids to answer “how” and “why” questions about the describing card. To scaffold the skills, you can have your child describe the card they are planning to play and have them answer questions aloud. If your child is struggling, modeling your thinking is another helpful skills.

I hope that this post has given you some great ideas for Christmas! Happy Black Friday!