To follow up with the first topic of our 4-part Parent-Child Workshop on Child Development, Liberty International School is posting this to help parents choose the right toys that support children's speech and language development.

Supporting our children with their speech and language development should not be so difficult or complicated as long as parents find and take advantage of opportunities that occur every day. It can be as simple as spending a portion of your day talking and listening to your kids tell stories, or just playing with them.

The following are some suggested toys and how they support speech and language development of infants and toddlers:

Stacking and Nesting Toys

-    Preposition, color, shape and size concepts
-    Concepts of full/empty by filling cups up with sensory materials like sand, beans, rice, water
-    Counting skills
-    Problem solving skills by  figuring out which one stacks or nests within the other  best
-    Fine motor and planning skills
-    Cause and Effect relationship

Wooden Blocks

-    Hand-eye coordination, fine motor skills and visual processing
-    Preposition, color, shape and size concepts
-    Counting Skills
-    Problem solving skills by figuring out how to create a tower  that will not fall down
-    Letter and number concepts if  using blocks with letters and numbers
-    Social skills like sharing with friends, taking turns, cooperation and problem solving skills when played with friends in school, at home or at a play station

Balls

-    Preposition, color, shape and size concepts
-    Tactile concepts and vocabulary when using balls made of different materials
-    Counting concepts and problem solving skills
-    Gross motor, planning and hand-eye skills when catching, throwing and rolling the ball
-    Social skills like sharing, taking turns, playing nicely, reading non-verbal cues of friends

Shape Sorter

-    Preposition, color, shape and size concepts
-    Empty and full concepts
-    Fine motor and planning skills
-    Counting and problem solving skills

Toy Phone

-    Social skills through pretend play by practicing his speech and language skills talking to a different array of people. Many times, your child will ask you talk after he talks on the phone which is also contributes a lot to learning how to take turns.
Play-dough
-    Tactile development
-    Creativity
-    Color and shapes skills
-    Fine motor skills
-    Hand-eye coordination

Set of animals

-    Literacy through practicing animal sounds, recognizing different animals, where they live, and how they help people, among other things.
-    Hand-eye coordination by walking the animals around.

Puzzles

-    Develops grasp of children
-    Hand-eye coordination
-    Enhances memory
-    Problem solving skills

Play Food

-    Literacy through recognizing different food available in and out of the house
-    Play pretend; teaching responsibility as they pretend they are cooking for their friends or their family.
-    Provides a venue to practice their vocabulary while they are playing pretend

Baby Doll

-    Teaches body parts
-    Teaches clothing vocabulary
-    Preposition, colors, shapes and sizes concepts
-    Teaches basic and every day action words like feed, cry, carry, etc
-    Understanding wh questions by asking your child Where is the baby? What does the baby want to eat? Why is the baby crying?
-    Great tool in developing social skills like taking turns, taking care of siblings, sharing, neatness, cleanliness, hygiene, etc. 

Toy Cars/Trucks

-    Prepositions, shapes, numbers, colors, shapes skills
-    Part-whole relationships
-    Simple every day action words
-    Social skills

These are just some of the toys that are readily available in Phnom Penh. Most of these are affordable and can be bought in the local markets like Orussey and other major toy stores in the city. Of course, you do not have to limit yourselves to the toys mentioned on this post. We just want to give you a general picture of what kinds of toys are good for your toddlers. We hope that this will help you.

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Offer a Nibble Tray.  Children like to have a variety of food to nibble. They do not usually sit down for full meals, but rather, they like snacking all the time. Parents  should take this  as an opportunity to feed children by offering a nibble tray. This can be a tray or a plate with compartments where you put bite-sized food servings on each compartment. You can put this nibble tray at a place that the child can see and easy for them to reach. Keep in mind, too, that kids are very visual so it is important to choose a tray that is colorful and serve food in an attractive, colorful and fun way. 

Cook with your child.  You can involve your child when cooking in the kitchen by doing very simple things like mixing or handing you over some things that you need. Also, you can give him a task. For example, when making sandwiches, you can give him a plastic knife, show him how to spread mayonnaise and make his own sandwich. This can be messy but do not worry about the mess. What is important is that your child enjoys the activity. This will help change his attitude about food.

Be creative in serving food for your child.  There are a lot of ways to serve food to children. Since they are visually stimulated most of the time, you have to make sure that everything you serve is colorful, fun and appealing to their eyes. Here are some examples in serving visually appealing meals to your child.