Feel & Find World Icons ~ Play With Me

This month our Play With Me toy is a bag filled with a fun sensory toy from the Guidecraft eco-friendly toy line for your little ones ~ the Feel & Find World Icons.

What’s in the Bag?

The Feel & Find World Icons come with 20 wooden disks and matching puzzle-piece shape inserts as well as a cloth bag to store the pieces in. The pieces are made from rubberwood and then stained with a low VOC aniline dye, so you don’t need to worry if they get chewed on by little ones in the home. 

To play the game, you typically lay the disks out and reach in the bag to find the matching shapes to fit the disk puzzles. But…here are a few different ways that you can play with the Feel & Find World Icons.

Play a matching game. Pick a smaller amount of the disks {8 to 10}, turn them facedown and take turns playing a matching game. When it’s your turn, flip a disk over and try to find that shape in the bag. If you can match it, you can keep it! Who will make the most matches?

Color Matching Memory game. Rather than match the pieces, place the disks face down on the table and flip them over in pairs. See if you can find two disks that are the same color. If not, turn them back over and let the next person try!

Stack them!! How high of a tower can you build with the pieces when they are in puzzle form? How high can you stack the pieces themselves?

Tell a story. Pick three shapes out of the bag and make up a story to go along with the pieces. If you’d like, continue pulling shapes out of the bag and adding them to your story {love this idea from Mama Jenn!!}.

A few more ideas for using the Feel & Find World Icons:

• sort the pieces by color
• create simple color patterns {orange, yellow, orange, yellow}
• create a hands-on graph with the pieces. Pick 10 pieces out of the bag, sort by color and see which one you have more of.

Find Out More

Feel & Find World Icons can be purchased directly from the Guidecraft website, via their NEW Facebook page, or from Amazon. Want to win a bag of your own? Head over to visit Thanks, Mail Carrier to enter. Giveaway ends on September 7th!

Recommended for ages 3+

Much thanks to Guidecraft who provided this toy for us to use and review as a part of the Guidecraft Mom Bloggers team.

Play With Me ~ Guidecraft Water & Bead Blocks

Not long ago we shared with you some fun uses for Guidecraft Rainbow Blocks. This month our Play With Me toys are a set of wooden blocks with a colorful twist ~ Crystal Bead Blocks and Shimmering Water Blocks from Guidecraft. The Bead Blocks and the Water Blocks both come in a set of eight blocks per package ~ four rectangle blocks and 4 half circle blocks in the colors of red, yellow, green and blue. They are made from hardwood with acrylic centers. The beads inside are colored plastic and the water blocks have added glitter inside to make them shimmer. 

Other than building, here are some creative ways to play with the Crystal Bead Blocks and Shimmering Water Blocks.

Observe! ~ What does the world through a different colored lens?

   

Stack and balance ~ see how tall you can make your block pile grow! Have fun balancing the different block shapes too for an added challenge.

 

Try to get all of the beads in a single layer ~ a fun challenge for little ones!

Have fun measuring different things around the house ~ including your tot!

Let the animals have some fun ~ Set up some feeding troughs and water holes for your animals and people!

Sort by color and shape.

Put together 3 letter words ~ use letters to put together small words inside the rectangles.

Crystal Bead Blocks and Shimmering Water Blocks can be purchased directly from the Guidecraft website, via their NEW Facebook page, or from Amazon. Be sure to check out their Rainbow Blocks too ~ we LOVE those!!

Much thanks to Guidecraft who provided this toy for us to use and review as a part of the Guidecraft Mom Bloggers team.

Play With Me ~ Fraction Action

This month our Play With Me toy a fun and colorful math toy from Guidecraft ~ Fraction Action and Fraction Cups. 

 

Both are wooden fraction manipulatives made from an eco-friendly rubberwood and then stained with low VOC aniline dyes ~ safe for even your little ones to chew and drool on. See?

The Fraction Action Board is 9.5” square and not quite 1/2” tall and for ages 2 and up. The set has 18 stained wood pieces that fit into the nine shaped spots on the self-storing board: circles, squares and hexagons. Each shape has fraction puzzles of varying difficult ~ whole, halves and thirds. The Fraction Cups are four great little portable puzzles containing 10 pieces that explore the fractions of halves, thirds and quarters. Both sets come with a simple activity booklet for use with your child.

Here are a few fun things that you can do and create with the Fraction Action toys to extend your learning with your little one:

~ Have fun tracing the shapes together

~ Stack the blocks as high as you can!

~ Pretend to slice the circles using a wooden or plastic knife. This is a great way to practice fraction words: whole, half, thirds, and fourths.

~ Have fun duplicating the fractions using Mama Jenn’s Education Cubes along with the Fraction Pie insert cards. Older kids can roll the cube, tell the fraction shown, and then duplicate the fraction.

A few more ideas for using Fraction Action and Fraction Cups:

• sort the pieces by color
• create simple color patterns {orange, yellow, orange, yellow}
• create simple shape patterns {circle, square} after creating shapes with the pieces
• create a hands-on graph with the pieces once you have sorted by color ~ which color do you have more of?

Much thanks to Guidecraft who provided this toy for us to use and review as a part of the Guidecraft Mom Bloggers team.

Play With Me ~ Twisters and Twister Curves

This month our Play With Me toy a fun and colorful construction toy from Guidecraft ~ Twisters and Twister Curves.  Twisters are plastic pieces that can be ‘snapped’ together to create and build. Each set comes with small pegs that help to hold the pieces more firmly in place.

Twisters includes 66 pieces, 24 connecting rods, and a small pair of plastic pliers used to pull the connecting rods out of the pieces. Twister Curves include 66 curved pieces, 24 connectors and a pair of pliers {recommended for ages 3 and up, just be cautious of the small pegs}.

Here are a few fun things that you can do and create with the Twisters and Twister Curves to extend your learning with your little one:

Create shapes. See how many shapes you can create together using the pieces in your set. Then have fun sorting them by shape or color!

Use the small pegs to practice fine motor skills. Can your little one fill all the holes with pegs?

Stack them! After putting together a bunch of shapes, see how tall of a tower you can create before they tip over.

Make letters. Make the first letter of your little ones name, or trying making different letter of the alphabet. You can even spell simple words.

   

Stack and create graduating sizes. Which one is the tallest? Shortest?

A few more ideas for using Twisters:

• sort the pieces by color
• create simple color patterns {orange, yellow, orange, yellow}
• create simple shape patterns {circle, square} after creating shapes with the pieces
• create a hands-on graph with the pieces once you have sorted by color ~ which color do you have more of?

Twisters can be purchased directly from the Guidecraft website, via their NEW Facebook page or from Amazon.

Much thanks to Guidecraft who provided this toy for us to use and review as a part of the Guidecraft Mom Bloggers team.

Play With Me ~ Interlox

This month our Play With Me toy a wonderful and simple building toy from Guidecraft ~ Interlox.  Interlox are plastic squares that can be clipped together to create and build. No screws. Nothing fancy ~ just clip and build. The squares all intersect as specific points and are made out of plastic, so you cannot bend and make curves, but overall are sturdy {recommended for ages 3 and up}.

Here are a few fun things that you can do and create with the Interlox to extend your learning with your little one:

Sort by the shape that is on the squares ~ we found diamonds, circles, starts, hearts, flowers, and octagons.

Sort by color…

Play mailman and drop the pieces through a slit in the top of an oatmeal container!

See how high you can stack and balance them.

Create a garage for some of your vehicles.

Sort by color and have fun counting them together.

A few more ideas for using Interlox:

• create simple color patterns {orange, yellow, orange, yellow}
• create simple shape patterns {circle, square} with the shapes on the pieces
• create a hands-on graph with the pieces once you have sorted by color ~ which color do you have more of?

Interlox can be purchased directly from the Guidecraft website, via their NEW Facebook page or from Amazon.

Much thanks to Guidecraft who provided this toy for us to use and review as a part of the Guidecraft Mom Bloggers team.

Play With Me ~ Farm Animal Block Mates & Unit Blocks

This month our Play With Me toy is something that pairs wonderful with wooden blocks ~ Farm Animal Block Mates. This fun pack extends the basic wooden unit block and will add MUCH fun to your little one’s day!

The Farm Animal Block Mates includes 5 animals in the box {a sheep, cow, pig, goat, and horse}. Each animal comes in four pieces ~ head, tail, front and back legs. The pieces are the perfect size for little hands, chunky and sturdy, giving your child some great fine motor practice as they fit the pieces together.

The four pieces fit onto a standard sized unit block and ‘lock’ into place on the block with the handy ‘Slip Grip’ system.

Here are some more fun and creative ways to use the Farm Animal Block Mates with your little one.

Jen pulled out her LeapFrog Fridge Farm and had her boys build what was in the barn with the Block Mates.

Jodi had her kiddos sort the pieces by head, tails and feet.

Carisa’s bunch also used their Rainbow Blocks along with the Block Mates to make some pretty animals! They used additional Rainbow Blocks turned on their sides as feeding troughs and filled them with different Learning Links as pretend hay {another great color sorting activity!}.

Have fun stacking and balancing the animals once they are put together {just a warning that it gets trickier the more you try to stack and little ones may get frustrated}.

Otherwise, just stack them haphazardly. :) A pig pile, if you will.

Jenn’s boys also had fun matching animal cards from Homeschool Creation’s Animal Sorting File Folder Game to the appropriate block mate animal.

A few more ideas {thanks to Jodi @ Granola Mom for God}:

• sort by color
• have a pretend animal race.  Using a dice, have your child roll the dice.  Whatever the number reveals, have the animal walk that many “steps” hops.  Winner animal receives some pretend food.
• have the child place the parts of each animal on separate wooden block as you relay the sound the animal makes.  So first, you would oink – on goes the head.  Then, you might neigh – on goes a horse body part on a different block and so on . . .
• study about each animal!  Read a book! 

Both the Farm Animal Block Mates and the 5 Piece Unit Block Set can be purchased directly from the Guidecraft website or from Amazon.

Would you like to win a set for your kids? Jodi @ Granola Mom 4 God is giving away a set of Farm Animal Block Mates along with a set of 5 Unit blocks {ends March 28, 2011}.

Much thanks to Guidecraft who provided this toy for us to use and review as a part of the Guidecraft Mom Bloggers team.