The book we just mentioned, A Guide for Parents and Teachers: The New Language of Toys: Teaching Communication Skills to Children with Special Needs, by Sue Schwartz, gives an excellent example using a toy farm. Fisher Price sells a nice farm with barn, farmer and all sorts of toy animals. Schwartz has this to say,
"You have decided that tomorrow you and your family are going for a ride out to a farm. You can use the Fisher Price Farm to talk about all of the animals, buildings, and people that you will see on the farm. At the farm, you can remind her that the cow is the same color as the toy cow at home or that the real horse is certainly much bigger than the toy horse at home. Later, when you have come home from your outing, you can go back to the toy farm and talk about what you saw. Did you know that you are also teaching verb tenses?
Children with special needs usually spend a lot of time seeing doctors, therapists, and specialists of one kind or another. They are very busy children. We don’t want you to become one of those parents who is always pushing her child to do one more task; yet you need to spend time to help her develop her language. You can do this through play. You can pick toys that are both fun and can be used to develop her language.”
Great idea, but suppose you don't have the $33 to buy the toy? There is no less educational value to any toy mentioned in this book just because you got it from your sister after her kids were too old to play with it or bought it at a yard sale for $2. Many early childhood programs have a toy lending library. They will let you check out educational toys for a few weeks, then bring the toy back and exchange it for a new one. If the program that serves your child does not have a toy lending service, ask them to start one.
The other option is to make your own toys. You can buy a bunch of farm animals at K-Mart for a dollar or two and make a barn out of shoebox.
NEXT: Using home-made toys