06 May suction cup toys
SUCTION CUP TOYS
Suction Cup Toys
Tonina Llull
This toy is excellent for fostering creativity, constructional praxis, fine motor/perceptual skills, visual spatial orientation, discrimination, and memory. Excellent for increasing proprioceptive processing, graded use of force, and motor control. Excellent for building independent and social play. It is highly versatile and can be used in various ways to introduce simple game play as well, by augmenting how the pieces are used.
Meets Expectations
Durability
Versatility
Engagement
The Essentials
All these versions of suction cup toys come with 3 or more uniquely shaped suction toys that stick together and pop apart. They are wonderful for exploration, creativity, and for building hand skills. Easily used to build fine motor/perceptual skills, constructional praxis, graded use of force, and feedback response.
Starting with “PipSquigz”, this version of the toy is made for very young children, starting at just 6 months of age. They stimulate infants and toddler to explore their shape, texture, and sounds while in a stroller, in a high chair, in the bath tub etc (so they are excellent for home program recommendations). All you need is a smooth surface for them to attach to or the they can suctioned together. This toy provides opportunity for tactile and sound exploration, the colors are bright and facilitate visual attention.
“Squigz” also has a Basic and Deluxe Set with 24 and 50 pieces respectively, aimed at building construction skills, eye hand coordination, hand skills, and visual perception skills, as well as creativity during both independent and small group play. This toy comes with forms to copy and facilitates that they learn how to connect each piece to create varying shapes. *Safest for children at least 3+. All you need are secure, smooth surfaces, anchored either vertically or horizontally to use them on a surface or connect them to each other, in various orientations, to form numbers, letters, humanoid forms, animals, etc.
“Frooze” is another version of a suction cup constructional building set. This set contains 6 various shapes and colors to foster creative design, fine motor skills, coordination, and visual perceptual skills. *Safest for children at least 3+.
We include the suction cup balls in this review — these balls are not constructional, but they do stimulate the same sensory systems and foster eye hand coordination and strength required to pull them off the surface thrown to — I utilized dry erase boards, mounted to the wall for target practice.
Fun Factor
Parents, kids, and the panel of experts greatly enjoy playing with this type of toy! It is active, engaging, and versatile. Froogs, Squigz, PipSquigz, and Suction Cup Balls are a success in the clinical setting, pre-K setting, ESE classrooms, and for free time in Regular education classrooms. These toys are an excellent part of your home program tool recommendations — the fun factor makes use at home enjoyable.
The panel of experts and kid consultants give this game two thumbs up for high engagement and repeat playing.
Set-Up and Clean-Up
This toy is portable and easily stored making it easy to travel with and to have easy access to in your work environment. The pieces are easily sanitized and stored in a container.
The IF-THEN’S and the BUT’S
WARNING — Choking Hazard for children under 3 years of age and for children who mouth non-edible objects (for Froogs and Squigz). Direct one-on-one supervision is required for younger children.
HOW TO AUGMENT THE USE OF THIS PRODUCT
Depending on the toy or game, as therapists and educators, it is typical that we vary the way we use the game and its components to facilitate underlying skills that may be required to play the game for children who are differently abled.
We can increase general learning and target specific learning areas, further enhance creativity and imagination, foster problem solving and memory, target additional physical skills (gross and fine motor) social skills, communication; and foster sensory processing and modulation.
Through activity analysis, we learn how to maximize the use of the toys and games we use with our clients/students/patients. Here you will find some suggestions that may help you maximize the versatility in every product.
NOTE: Not all games lend to a wide variety of alternate strategies. The level and amount of suggestions will vary from game to game and may be added to from time to time.
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