Pop-Up Frog
- Jenni
- No Comments
I love this toy. It was one of the first toys I discovered when I began working in Speech and Language Therapy 12 years ago, and I love it for the following reasons:
- You can build and teach anticipation. Even my 6-month old baby closes her eyes when I say ‘ready…steady…go’ as she anticipates the frog jumping up. Anticipation is important for communication for many reasons, which I’ll explain at a later date.
- You can teach words. By putting different soft toys in the box to ‘pop’ out, such as a dog, cat, pig, banana, sock, ball etc and labelling it when it pops out, children learn new words. It is such a motivating toy and often gets a giggle when it pops. This means that children are really, really focused on the toy that ‘pops’ so when you then label it, there is a much higher chance of that word sticking in their memory.
- It’s repetitive – and repetition is great for learning. It can be very boring for parents to play with the same toys over and over again – and I’m no exception to finding it painful! But during lockdown when there was little to do, an activity that kept a baby and toddler entertained for 20 minutes is one I’m going to keep using!
