Alphabet/numbers toys

DS is starting to get interested in the alphabet and counting. I'm looking for any good toy reccomendations to help him learn...obviously singing and counting are the best way, but toys are fun too

 

We bought our guys THIS and they really love to play with it. They will "sing" along with the alphabet sounds and repeat the letters. Be warned that you will need to keep a close eye on the letter magnets so they don't get lost, and be prepared for some fights over the unit if you get it! :lol:

For counting, our best "tool" has so far been our fingers. We have a couple of books that have numbers/counting as well, so that helps them learn the actual symbols.

 

we also have fridge magnets - but the old fashioned plain Jane jumbo kind. my brother (who lives with us) will often spend hours sitting on the floor in the kitchen with the girls spelling things out - they love the letter 'O'. :laughing: i've also started writing letters on their paper while they're colouring or putting their name on their picture & saying the letters as i write them.

for counting, so far we pretty much just do books - although, they've figured out 1-2-3 pretty well (we recently started counting for time-outs).

 

We have the fridge one too but it's a farm one and mine love it!
One of my sons therapist gave me a great idea and about 2 weeks out of the month I do it. Pick a letter at the start of the week--you could also pick a number. Then during the week have different projects for them to draw that letter or go over names that start with that letter. It's really helped mine figure out their letters. GL!

 

Books.
I also have the Tad and Lily frogs that do the alphabet and counting (both are from Leap Frog). My two also have a Alphapet Explorer that they love.

 

I have been counting with the girls since they were real little. Mostly to 15 because I used to be able to workout in front of them and I would count the reps out loud to them and they would get excited. They can count to 5 on their own. We also sing to ten, which calms them down when they are in the middle of a melt down (one, two, three clap clap four five six clap clap seven eight nine clap clap TEN! bop bop bop- I know a grammy is coming my way right?). TMI: I tend to count when I get stressed and unfortunely have used this mechanisim on them as well... Also, we sing the ABC's and have flash cards that they love to read with letters, numbers and shapes on them. They also have toys that sing numbers and the alphabet too. I think it is just a matter of repition and looking at everything you do as a learning activity. I am starting to add colors to describe things to them, so they can start to pick up on that too.

 

I have not done this yet but I saw it at the library at storytime. You take a big piece of felt and assemble it as a wall hanging, or attach it to an easel if you have one. Then you take smaller pieces (that are like notebook page sizes) and cut out letters and numbers. Then they basically work like clings. Really cool. Or, you print out big colorful letters and numbers and laminate them and then you can put some wide velcro strips on them that would be another method. In this case, they were telling the story of some animals in the sea and he would pull out these big cutouts of animals as he was talking about them. It was pretty cool. And felt is cheap. Just an idea for something different.