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Lyndsey Ryburn, MOT, OTR/L & Sierra Kiley, MS, CCC-SLP

Aloha Holiday Gift Guide


Happy Holidays! We have put together a gift guide with some of our favorite toys and activities that support speech and language as well as motor and sensory development! They are separated into age ranges from 12-24 months and 2-5 years of age. All of these items can be found at either Target or Amazon!


12- 24 Months:


B. Toys 4 Pull-Back Toy Vehicles


These cars are great for working on those first sounds and early words (e.g. “go, wee, vroom, up, beep-beep, more”). They are also soft for your little ones.


B. Toys Toy Drum Set 7 Instruments


We love this as a fun 1st instrument set. Music is a great opportunity to help increase language development in young children. Use different instruments to also work on gestural imitation, which is a prelinguistic skill for speech production (e.g. Tap the drum and wait intently to see if your little one imitates you by tapping the drum).


B. Toys Wooden Shape Sorter- Wonder Cube


This shape sorter is a great tool for little ones to work on their fine motor skills and visual skills such as visual motor integration and visual perception. This toy can also help your littles work on sustained attention to complete the puzzle and place all of the pieces in.


Balance Beams and Stepping Stones


These balance beam bars and stepping stones will help little ones work on their balance as they try to keep their feet on while walking across. While playing with these, your child is also working on their gross motor coordination. Lastly, incorporate these into a mini obstacle course for your child to work on their sequencing, attention, and organization of behavior!




2- 5 Years:


Melissa and Doug Cutting Food- Play Food Set


Play food helps build imagination play as well as provides opportunities for early turn taking skills (e.g. “My/your turn”). Play food is also great to work on early pronouns; set up a few toys that can eat with you and model phrases such as, “He/she is eating the….”.



Tracing and Pen Control Workbook


We love this workbook for helping children work on their pencil grasp, fine motor control and coordination, and visual motor skills. This workbook allows children to trace shapes which are pre-writing strokes to prepare for handwriting letters and words.


Melissa & Doug Reusable Sticker Pads Set: Habitats, Vehicles, Town


These reusable sticker pads are great for older kids working on spatial concepts (e.g. under, next to, beside, on top of, above… etc) and multi-step directions; for example, “Put the girl wearing a red shirt next to the school bus”. The 5 picture scenes also provide a lot of variety to work on storytelling and story recall.



Super Duper Publications- Move Your Body Fun Deck


These movement cards are great for teaching children about different body movements, how their body moves and overall body awareness. They provide great opportunities for motor planning and visual motor skills as the child looks at the card and copies the movement!



Scooter Board


Scooter boards are great for working on bilateral coordination (using the right and left and top and bottom halves of the body together in a coordinated way). Using the scooter board either in sitting or prone (laying on their belly) works on core strength and postural stability as well as upper body strength and hand strength. With the addition of pulling a rope to propel, children will be challenged to work on crossing midline (see our blog on crossing midline for more information), hand strength, and bilateral coordination. Finally, scooter boards are a great way for children to get proprioceptive sensory input which releases serotonin in the brain, providing a calming and regulating effect!



Melissa and Doug Scissor Skills Workbook


This workbook is great for working on early scissor skills in a safe and fun way! Children will practice their fine motor control and coordination as well as bilateral coordination (using two hands together) as well as graded pressure (the appropriate amount of pressure to snip or cut with to cut the paper.


We hope you and your children enjoy these items as much as we do! Happy Holidays from the Aloha Family!

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