A Dollop of Sour Cream

I'm not much into spicy food. I have recently discovered that if a meal is just a tad too spicy for me, I can put sour cream on top and make it not just palatable, but wonderful. This blog is devoted to doing the same for life.

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1.20.2010

Things My Son likes to Play with: Lacing Toys

Even before Christmas, my MIL had provided some toys for our son to play with at her house. She had a good assortment there. Two that have proven better toys after we left than even when we were there though were Melissa and Doug Lacing toys:

Melissa and Doug Lacing Beads in a Box


The other is lacing shapes -- Melissa and Doug Lace and Trace Shapes.

There was no box with either -- but the boxes are not necessary as it turns out. In fact, they may just make it harder to store.

These have proven invaluable, both for their traditional purpose of lacing (though for the the wooden beads, you need to tie the first block onto the shoelace so it will not fall off.) and for stacking up like blocks. (The trace and lace shapes do not stack, but are a lot more intriguing than other lacing shape toys, even wooden ones, I have. He will sit quietly for 10-15 minutes at a time, lacing the shape up until he has used the entire length of the lace. And then want to do it again after Momma removes the lace from the holes.)

I think the STOP sign is his favorite because he can read the word on it. But he has not turned down any of them to play with.

Warning: With the blocks, you need to be careful that they do not spin the beads on a lace around themselves. This seems to be a very popular play. Also, the laces are long enough to choke.

But the shapes store easily in a quart size Ziploc, so are an easy toy to take on the road. They have also survived quite well a 2-year old's interest. They are sturdy and I do not mind handing these to him to play with. And the blocks, while the paint on some are peeling, are bright, colorful, and engaging to use. The different shapes leads to some insights about stacking as well while working with them.

2 Comments:

Blogger Adriana said...

Diego loves to play with lacing toys at the preschool. I have been thinking about buying some for at home but had no idea which ones were any good. Thanks for the review! :)

11:08 AM  
Anonymous Scrumptious said...

I'm so intrigued by the comment you left on my blog, on the top 10 chapter books post. Why was Cheaper by the Dozen ineligible? I'm dying to see your list - do you have it posted somewhere?

12:12 PM  

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