Holiday Gift Ideas by Developmental Therapists

Guest Authored By Stephanie R, DT

Below are some unique gift ideas to help build children’s global development and play skills.

Fisher Price: Cash Register

  • Cause-and-effect toy  
  • Model while saying these words: Put in/Take out, Open/Close, Push/Pull 
  • Give them a turn (practice turn-taking and sharing attention)  
  • Counting coins (1:1 correspondence)  
  • Color Identification  
  • Pretend Play: Pretend to buy items (toys, food, etc.)

Spike the Hedgehog

  • Great toy to expand fine motor coordination 
  • Counting  
  • Color Identification: Following directions: “give me COLOR/put in COLOR”
  • Taking-Turns

Busy Book for Kids

Targets: 

  • Fine Motor skills, Hand-Eye Coordination, and Problem Solving 
  • Color, number, and shape identification 
  • Letters: identification, early spelling 
  • Categorization and Classification skills: matching and sorting 

Includes: 

  • Puzzles (sequencing), Animals, Food, Weather, Body Parts

Coogam Wooden Block Puzzle

  • Targets problem-solving/Spatial reasoning skills
  • Can practice asking for “help” 
  • Color and shape recognition 
  • Fine Motor Skills and hand-eye coordination 
  • Constructive play: building geometric patterns/figures (pyramid, robot, fish, etc.)

Coogam Wooden Tower Stacking Game

  • Following rules: taking turns rolling the dice and fine motor skills to remove the pull of a corresponding color block 
  • Cause-and-effect play 
  • Hand & Eye coordination 
  • Color identification 
  • Matching