As Ethan is getting older I have been looking for games and toys that we can play with that move him away from the flashing, button pressing toys that he loves. My reason for this is because I want to engage with Ethan so that he can show me the information that he knows, but can’t verbally tell us about. The Toadstool stock lots of amazing toys that give us this option and they asked us to review the HABA My Very First Games Feeling and Touching game.
The HABA My Very First Games Feeling and Touching game is suitable for children aged 2+. The game offers a variety of ideas for different activities. These include free play, tactile game “What did the sheep eat?” and game variation “Feeling the pairs”. The instructions for all versions of these games are included in the box.
The box contains a tactile fabric sheep, twelve wooden food pieces, one little bag and six shamrocks.
How Do We Play The Game?
Being that Ethan is non-verbal it took me a while to work out how to introduce and play this game with him. I decided that I would put the wooden food items in the middle of us and ask Ethan to find one of the pieces of food, for example the chocolate. I would then ask Ethan to put one piece of chocolate into the sheep and one into the bag. I would then take Ethan’s hands and place the sheep in-between them so that I can rub his hands to feel the food item inside the sheep. We would then open the sheep so that Ethan can put the other food piece into the bag. When Ethan gives me the sheep I wait for him to tell me he wants it open by humming ‘open’ to me. I decided not to use the shamrocks in our play as I didn’t want to confuse Ethan with them.
What does Ethan think of the game?
Ethan loves this game, it is kept under his bed and he often wakes up and goes straight to it. We have been known to play this game at 6.30 in the morning! He is fascinated with the sheep and he loves putting the food items into it, as well as taking them out. This is therefore working on his fine motor skills. It holds his attention easily and Ethan has been able to pick out the food items that I request.
My Verdict
The quality of the items used in this game are fantastic. They are very well made and will easily last for years. The wooden food items are very smooth and are crafted to a very high standard. They are also big enough that even if your little one is tempted to try to eat them, they are too big to be a choking hazard.
This game will easily grow with Ethan’s development, and hopefully if his speech increases we will be able to change how we play the game. I feel this game will be a firm favourite for many years to come.
It’s always lovely to hear how Ethan learns and how some of our toys help him. Really heartwarming! Thank you x
I think this is a really novel idea for a game. It seems the sort of game you might movck up to play at a party, but I’ve never really seen it as an actual product 🙂