Our October All-Star Toy is the Little People Big Helpers Home from Fisher Price. We love the versatility (and add-on buildings & characters!) of this house, but any playhouse is an engaging way for your kids to practice skills in SO many areas, including those highlighted below.
WALK:
Gross motor skills aren’t always what come to mind when you think of a dollhouse. Promote use of big muscles by playing on all fours, in kneeling (on knees), or standing! Another creative way to make dollhouses more active is to use Painter’s Tape (always a favorite) on the floor to make roads and set up a little town!
For this activity, we gathered a few other play sets we had, like a schoolhouse, a nursery, and a farm, and grabbed some vehicles and Little People.
For other areas we got creative! We made an ice cream shop and a park. We also made a hospital out of a box and a doctor’s kit (not pictured)!
This setup is inviting and naturally increases opportunities for more movement. Playing on the floor and crawling/pushing cars is a great way to work on core strengthening, as well as muscles in the hands and shoulders. Don’t believe us? Get down on the floor with your kiddo and play. You will soon feel the burn!
TALK:
A playhouse is one of our favorite toys for promoting language development. Just think of all of the words and concepts your little one can learn from this one toy!
Support your child’s understanding and use of language by modeling new words, expanding on their ideas, and producing open-ended comments and questions as you play! Here are some insider tips:
- Build vocabulary by modeling a variety of word types, including nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, articles, and conjunctions.
- You can easily expand on your child’s idea by simply adding a few words; for example, if your child says, “Go up,” you can expand by saying, “Yes, the mommy is going up the stairs.”
- Some examples of open-ended comments and questions include those that start with, “I wonder,” “Why,” and “How.”
PLAY:
Moving small figurines promotes wrist extension and graded control to build little muscles, as well as finger isolation to press buttons, pretend play builds attention and imaginative skills.
For Halloween we got creative and decided to decorate our house and give our Little friends costumes! This provided fun and busy play with so many opportunities for fine motor and language practice!
Check back throughout the month for more ideas on how and why we love to use this toy for play!
Looking for more pretend play sets?
Check our Amazon Shop Pretend Play Section.
Perform activities recommended by Walk, Talk, Play at your own risk with appropriate adult supervision provided. Walk, Talk, Play is not responsible for any injury caused while performing these play activities.
This post may contain affiliate links. This means that if you click on a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small commission (at no additional cost).
1 thought on “Little People Big Helpers Home|October Toy of the Month”