More Than Play
WHEEL PALS
PLAYSKOOL WHEEL PALS will roll right into your child’s heart. These itsy-bitsy pals are easy to squeeze and roll anywhere your child wants to take them—down the slide, under the bed or in the car. Best of all, once your little one sees his little pals rolling across the floor, he’ll want to get moving and crawling after them!
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It’s More Than Play... This Toy Also Teaches:
Fundamental Movement Skills
Gross Motor Skills
Crawling
Spatial Awareness
Fine Motor Skills
Fundamental Movement Skills
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Gross Motor Skills
While they scoot and crawl to push and chase the WHEEL PALS, children practice using large muscle groups, or gross motor skills. Big muscle movements like pushing, pulling, rolling and crawling usually develop first and in turn will help develop fine motor skills like manipulating, grasping and dropping. The more children play using their big body movements, the better prepared they will be to develop fine motor skills.
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Crawling
Playing with the WHEEL PALS may help promote early movements, as little ones crawl and push the colorful friends. When a child crawls, he is learning his body has two sides and that each side can move different parts at different times. When both sides of the body are coordinated and can achieve complex motor movements like crawling, it helps develop pathways between the two hemispheres (or sides) of the brain.
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Spatial Awareness
Zipping and zooming his little wheelin’ pals around the playroom, under the dining room table or outside can help your child become aware of his size and how much space he takes up. Understanding how much space something takes up is called spatial awareness. Children need to gain an understanding of spatial awareness to figure out how to move themselves and objects around without bumping into things. Spatial awareness is the same skill that children need in order to color inside the lines.
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Fine Motor Skills
Fine motor skills are the small, refined muscle movements of the fingers and hands used for delicate daily tasks such as buttoning a shirt and lacing a sneaker. In order to develop these skills, children need to build strong finger muscles and have many different sensory experiences including tactile, messy play.
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Play With Your Child
Want to join the fun? Playing with your child can boost his learning, and it gives him more time to bond with you! Try these simple tips to enhance your child’s play experience:
- Talk to your child about each creature featured in the WHEEL PALS. What are they called? How fast can they go? What noises do they make?
- Take your child outdoors to find a bee or a snail. Where do these little creatures live? Where would you live if you lived outside?
- Ask your child which of these creatures flies, hops, swims and which crawl or creep.
- Make the different sounds these little bugs make in the wild, like a buzzing bee. Imitating sound is the beginning of making sounds for talking. Fun noises encourage a child to explore his voice and the sounds he can make.
- As he moves the toy, talk to him about which direction his WHEEL PAL is moving in. Experiencing language of direction like “forward and backward,” or “up and down” will help him to develop an understanding of direction.
- Place the WHEEL PALS just out of reach to encourage your child to move toward the toys and explore his surroundings.
