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Benefits of Low Tech Toys

Hi everyone! It is the year 2020 and everyone seems to have a cell phone, table and personal computer. As a parent, I can say, these items do come in handy and do play an important role in our household. I for one am able to work from anywhere because of my laptop and phone. This affords me more time with my kids, less transitions throughout the day and so on. If you are a parent, you know being flexible is paramount…and I thank my gadgets for allowing a little more flexibility.

Now…when it comes to kids with technology…I don’t know what is best for others and I am not here to judge what others do as I truly believe parents all want what is best for their little ones ….and sometimes you need to find a Curious George episode so you can cook dinner!

We all know high tech toys. They are available and many have merit …. But today we are going to talk about the benefit of the old-school, low tech toys we grew up with!!! I do believe, and you can see from what we develop at Mobi, that there are so many developmental benefits associated with low tech toys. From the chance of more physical play to the opportunity to learn how to play fairly…there are lots of benefits we can find!

Board Games:

Board games allow the whole family to play together and often involve a competitive element. We’ve started playing Go Fish and Crazy 8s with our six-year-old. This has really been a lesson in playing fair and emotional regulation for him. He constantly wants to change the rules so that he can win, take more turns to increase his chances of winning and often hides behind the couch with a pout (and sometimes tears) when he loses. Game by game, we’ve seen his ability to regulate his emotions increase. The emotions have also provided us a way to talk about feelings, how we handle them, how we control our own thoughts and actions. It’s been really interesting.

Another cool thing about board games is that you can often play them inter-generationally! At Mobi, we’ve got 5 games on the market now and we’ve made a point of this being a key feature of all of them. There is nothing better than seeing our kids play a game with their great grandmother! It’s amazing and something both the littles and great gran cherish. Mobi, Mobi Kids, Ultimo, Bllox and Stello ….. they can all be played with all ages!

Stuffies:

We’ve just gotten into stuffies as a household. It all started because my son was afraid to sleep in his new bunk bed on his own. We talked through it and I gave him my old stuffed bear from when I was a kid … Bert. Bert has become a favourite and sleeps in that bunk every night. Bert can be thought of as a transitional object …. He provides a feeling of consistency and security when our son was adjusting to the new bed.

Bicycles:

We’ve got a six-year-old and a two-year-old who are extremely active. Bikes have been wonderful thing for our family. Our son can ride a two wheeler now and our daughter is on a balance bike. Not only do the bikes provide physical activity and therefore burn off a ton of energy….they provide an opportunity to learn about road safety and help develop balance and motor skills. 

We’ve notice our son grow up a lot since he began riding a two wheeler. There seems to be a huge sense of freedom, independence and empowerment that comes along with riding a bike. Our son has begun to trust himself to make more decisions on his own and we’ve also encouraged him to lead us on family bike rides … to be “the leader”. It has been so neat to watch his confidence grow.

We’d love to hear from you! Tell us some “old school” or low tech toys you love!

 House of Webs

Hello everyone! We hope this finds you well and enjoying the abundant family time that this pandemic has provided us with. We are slowing things right down on the weekends and letting our kids lead the days. This weekend, they found some string…..and oh what fun they had.

As you know…. at Mobi we LOVE toys and activities that disguise learning and make it fun, right?! Open-ended, developmental play is where it’s at! This string was no different. They literally “webbed” the entire house. The adults thought it was very “Mission Impossible-y” and pretened the string was like a lazer beam that would zap us if we touched it. The kids…..played that way with it for a while, then pretened that the string was their bridge and that if they didn’t walk on it, the pretend alligators would get them. They had a ball! Speaking of balls….they also dumped out our ball basket and tried to through the balls under, through and over different parts of the web!

Questions for the kids:

Lose or Tight:

At various places around the house, the string was either loose or tight…or somewhere in the middle. We went around and asked them to talk about the tension of the string at different points.

Long or Short:

Same idea as above. Where did you make the string reach for long distances? Where do you see a short piece of string? 

Under or Over:

Do you think you can step over the string without touching it with your body? Can you crawl under the string without it touching your body? We did this all around the house, and the kids loved it! Think high jump and army crawls! Very cute and quite an active activity!

Developmental Benefits of Web Building!

Fine Motor Skills: Rolling the string out and placing it around certain household objects like sink faucets, door knobs, railings….required quite a bit of fine motor skills!

Cause and Effect: We encouraged the littles to watch what happened when they stepped on the string. Did it tighten in other places? Did it get loose? What did it feel like under their feet?

Coordination and Proprioception: Over or Under as described above was big for coordination and proprioception. The kids had to make sure they knew where their bodies were and had to focus on where to put limbs as they moved over or under!

Concentration and Focus: Although it seems all fun and games…there is quite a bit of concentration and focus required to move through a web and even set it up! We were super very impressed with their desire to web the entire house and then play for hours.

We never thought we’d make a web in our house, but we also never thought we’d be quarantined for this long! When we took the web down on Monday, we made sure to wind the string back up nicely so we could do this another day! We will certainly do this again independent of quarantine! We also think it would be a really cool backyard activity!

It's a Balancing Act

Hi everyone! We hope you are keeping well and staying safe. We are on week 9(?) of isolation up in Canada and we are strangely getting used to the “new routine”. The kids are out of school but getting used to the new normal and although we aren’t into pandemics ….. it has been nice to slow down and get to spend more time with the family. Always a silver lining.

We aren’t sure if you know but everyone who works at Mobi used to be a professional athlete of some nature. Weird but true fact. My husband played volleyball, I played basketball and Christine (aka Cho) played basketball as well.

Bringing up little kids in an environment where parents are used to being active has been awesome. Our littles run circles around us in terms of energy and are always up for new adventures. Bring up active little kids when you are quarantined for 4 weeks and counting ….. that’s a whole other story (wink wink)….we’ve just had to get creative!

We’ve talked about open ended play with the toys we produce at Mobi. If you recall, open ended play is important as it gives children the freedom to explore, create, fail and reassess. We’ve brought open ended play into the physical play or activity we do as well. One item that we’ve had in various places around the house is a balance beam. This has been awesome during the last four weeks. We got it from IKEA way back when and it has been a dream purchase.

* Disclaimer: we promise our living room isn't always so "lived" in ;). We've rearranged some things since being quarantined!!!

Our kids are 6 and 2.5 year sold but both are pretty engaged and fearless when it comes to the balance beam.

Here are some things we do on the beam!

• Walk all the way forward on the beam.

• Walk all the way sideways on the beam.

• Cross one foot over the other as you walk sideways on the beam. 

• Catch a ball at every red step on the beam. This includes a parent throwing a ball. We us all different balls. Bigger balls for Kate who is 2.5 and smaller balls for Noah who is 6.

• Make an obstacle course involving the beam. The beam is usually the first obstacle for us. So the kids have to walk across it in various ways, jump off and then run through the kitchen and around “the loop” through the dining room without being caught by the tickle monster (daddy), high five mommy (me!) and get back on the beam.

This is the kids’ favourite beam activity by far. There is something about the calm start, crazy middle and high five at the end that just gets them.

If you don’t have a beam in your house, you can always make a pretend one with tape on the ground, paper or pillows. Although there won’t be height off the ground, these options still give your littles something to focus on and a line to follow!