OT Holiday Gift Ideas

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! The holidays are a great time to enhance your toy closets with fun toys that promote the most important developmental skills.  Here are some great ideas from our OT department at PediaSpeech Services, Inc. Happy giving!

1. Squigz-  These are a favorite in the clinic!  They are suction toys that stick to hard surfaces (tables, windows, the bathtub, etc.) and are great for learning to use both hands together, fine motor strengthening and coordination, and constructive creative play.
2. Hyper Dash– This is a great game to get your kids up and moving!  Watch the colors flash and find your way to the matching color cup.  You can run, jump, skip, crab walk, make an obstacle course, whatever you can think of!
3.  Pop Up Pirate– This is a great game for teaching sequencing and taking turns.  It is also great for fine motor grasp development and visual motor development.  Fun for the whole family!
4. Brain Flakes– These are a fun, different alternative to traditional building toys like Legos.  They promote fine motor coordination, visual motor and visual spatial skills, constructive creative play, and bilateral coordination.
5. Go Go Gelato– You can never go wrong with a fun food based toy (I get the best participation with these)!  Use both hands together to scoop and pour a gelato sequence into your cup that matches a card.  This game is great for functional skills, visual perceptual skills, and coordination.
6. Ring-A-Ding-Ding– Grab a card, and match the rings on the picture card to your own hand.  This game is perfect for developing fine motor skills and hand strengthening, as well as visual perceptual skills.
7. Thumbs Up– Race to match the challenge card by scooping rings onto your fingers!  This game is great for problem solving, fine motor skills, and visual skills.
8. I-Spy Dig In– An all time classic, with a twist!  Locate the objects that match the presented card.  Great for visual scanning and figure ground discrimination, fine motor coordination and tactile processing.
9. Spot It– Be the first to find matching objects in two cards.  This game is great for attention and visual skill building.
10. Pegcasso Build and Drill– This game has so many different types of activities for all ages!  Fine motor skills, visual skills, strengthening skills, and a toy that will grow up with your child!  It was created by an OT with development in mind.