Adapted Shape Sorter

Nathan's mom over at http://www.prayfornathan.org/, gave me an idea for our blog. THANK YOU Marcela! Occasionally, I will be adding different items that we have bought and adapted for Timmy. I will also be giving my suggestions and opinions on different products that we are using or have used.

Being that Timmy is blind and has a hearing impairment, we try to find toys that will appeal to his sense of touch and which also has some audiotory out for stimulation. Sometimes this can be difficult, especially when these types of "adapted" toys for the special needs child are so expensive. We have to find ways to adapt toys that can be bought at Toys R Us, Wal-Mart or other retail stores.

Here is an example of one of Timmy's toys that we adapted to make it more sensory friendly for him.

This is the Fisher-Price Laugh and Learn Cookie Shape Surprise. It can be purchased from Amazon for $19.99 or somethingsimilar can be purchased from Enabling Devices for $86.95+. The shape sorter has a volume control switch on the bottom. It has 2 modes of play 1. Shape mode 2. Number mode. There is a sensor in the sorter that detects when an item has been added to the "cookie jar." Once an item has been added, there is a motivational short song that is played and the red nose lights up, to encourage children along in play.

                                                                         

We adapted the shape pieces with items  found around the house and attached the items to each shape by using a hot glue gun. As you can see in the above picture there are five different shaped pieces (Star, Heart, Square,Triangle, Circle). We used an old beaded necklace, cotton, piece of crinkly plastic paper, a piece of rubber and a piece of silky material. Other items that could also have been used are; sand paper, a piece of sponge, other textures of material etc... Let your imagination run wild with whatever you can find around the house. Even though the shaped pieces will no longer fit into the aproperate shaped slots, it still can be used by dropping the shapes into the cookie jar through the opening at the top. This is our goal for Timmy, for him to be able to pick up the pieces and drop them into the cookie jar. Being that we used a hot glue gun to attach the items to each of the shapes, they should be easily removable in the future, so that the toy can be played with by placing each shaped piece into its corresponding shaped hole on the cookie jar.