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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!

Mommy School using Mobi Tools!

 Hi everyone! Learning math is tricky. When we started developing Mobi….we didn’t have any kids yet. So we were grownups playing with numbers. Super nerdy grownups, but grownups nonetheless. Now that we have little ones …. we are really seeing the benefits of all our games in terms of developmental tools for learning.

We’ve been working on both math and reading and other activities with our six-year-old son as of late. He is a super smart little guy but does NOT like to sit still …. but he does like to play. This is kind of all we are about at Mobi: combining learning and games/toys. Sometimes trickier when you are working with your own kids, but it is really proving beneficial for our son and for our family. 

How are we using Mobi toys/games in “mommy school” with our 6 year old?

• Ultimo Dice: We started with these to do very simple addition and subtraction with a little worksheet I make up. I will include a picture below. Please note our 6 year old’s creative liberties! With each equation, we as our son to use the Ultimo dice to figure out the answer. For the most part addition is done in his head …. subtraction on the other hand is proving tricky and is where the dice really come in.

So, if the equation read 8-3, we would ask our son to pick 8 dice (sneaking in counting and tactile play here)…and then take 3 of those dice away. Once he sees the result physically in front of him, subtraction seems to make sense and he really enjoys it. 

• Mobi Kids Tiles: Mobi tiles make sense. It’s a math game! Once we got comfortable with the Ultimo dice, we moved into the Mobi Kids tiles. They only go up to 10 so the numbers remain comfortable for starting equations.* When we started I made the equations before our son sat down to answer them.

Using the example above: 8-3=? I would leave the answer blank and my son would have to find the number tile that answered the equation correctly. Visual processing skills are at work when he is looking for the 5 tile. Then fine motor skills are at work to pick up the tile and place it in line with the equation. Oh yes … and he is also learning math!!!!! Amazing right?! 

• Bllox Blocks: Sequencing: Noah’s teacher has been working on sequencing at school. This wasn’t something Noah took to quickly. He understood the ABAB very well but anything beyond that was tricky when we talked about it without physical representation. We started using Bllox blocks as a tool to understand sequencing further and these colorful blocks really did the trick. Check out the ABAB, ABBA and ABCABC sequences he built! 

So many ways to play with our product! How are you playing with Mobi products? We would love to hear!!

*Although Mobi Kids tiles only go to value 10…equations greater than 10 can be made. For example 10+5=8+7.

Team Mobi here!  We hope everyone is enjoying their spring/summer so far!

One of the big buzz words in infant and child development is "open-ended play" and the search for "open-ended toys" has been rapidly increasing over the last several years.  But what exactly does "open-ended" mean?  

Bascially, it means that there are no restrictions, boundaries, or fixed purposes.  You can use the item/toy/activity in a variety of ways, and it allows the child to use their imagination and think creatively.  There's no right or wrong way to play.

A classic toy example would be building blocks, but open-ended play can also refer to activities like dress, role play, and so forth.  How many of us have sat through tea parties or been the recipient of a plastic hamburger with lettuce, cheese, an egg, and perhaps some purple jelly?  These are all examples of ways kids can use their imagination to have fun, and give us adults a bit of insight on what is going on in their fascinating minds!  

Ones of the easiest ways to engage your kids in open-ended play is to just give them a bunch of random things and see what they come up with.  Check out Isabelle and Sophia's maze that they made with recycled goods!

There is also the category of open-ended sensory toys.  Sensory toys are toys that are meant to stimulate at least one of the five senses (sound, touch, taste, smell, sight).  These can range from kinetic sand to these silicone based toys that we've developed (Zippee, Peeka, Wigloo). 

As a company, we are devoted to creating high quality toys and games that have some educational and/or developmental attributes in addition to just being fun!  For more information on our products, visit our website!

Mobi Kids and Sudoku!

Hi everyone! We are mixing two of our favourite games in this post… Mobi Kids and Sudoku! You can go ahead and print off the grids we’ve made!!

One thing that we love doing as a family is playing games. We happened upon a Sudoku for kids book at our Nana and Papa’s house last weekend and our 6 year old took to it immediately. We were honestly kind of surprised as sitting still does not happen too much with this little…but sit he did!

One tricky things that was pointed out was how the little grids were. Our son found it difficult to make his numbers so small. If you follow us on Instagram…you will see that our numbers are VERY BIG right now! To make Sudoku work for us…we simply took the grid and drew it on a bigger piece of paper – perfect! This worked in terms of fitting our numbers into boxes and also gave us some room to write down the possible numbers at the top of the boxes. Win, win, win!!!

 Awesome things about play Sudoku with Mobi tiles….

• You can move tiles around at will and try variations of play very easily.
• There is a tactile approach added to the game.
• The game becomes more colourful
• You can play the same grid over and over because once you take the tiles off, the grid is clean!
• Playing with numbers will get your littles comfortable with numbers. The fact they can try and try again without have to commit to a move proved to be really positive for our family. “What if we tried this?” …. Hmmmm “What if we put this tile here? Would that work?”
• The game becomes cooperative for multiple players. We were able to play as family. With a pencil, that is a little tricky, but with Mobi tiles, Sudoku became a working puzzle.

We’d love to hear about other ways you play with Mobi tiles! The possibilities are endless! We've included some here for you to play with!!

How do you play with Mobi?!?!?!

Bubbles, Bubbles, Bubbles

Okay people! Who is ready for some warm weather????? We certainly are! Mobi Headquarters is located in Toronto, and in Canada we do winter!  Winter is now a thing of the past (fingers and toes are currently crossed). The kids are itching to get outside. As you probably know we have two kids: age 2.5 and 6. Although their ages are different we try to do activities that both can enjoy as it is just easier for the family as a whole and nice for the kids to have fun together.

One of our favourite “Fresh Air” activities that you can do right in your backyard = BUBBLES! Not only are these great for entertainment …. but they are also great for development! At Mobi, you know we are all about kids’ development and open ended play. Bubbles are the perfect resource for both of these! There is no “right way” to play with bubbles and we’ve got a list of some amazing developmental benefits of bubbles below.

Developmental Benefits of Bubbles!

Fine Motor Skills: Pinching that skinny wand!? You got it – fine motor at its best! Opening and closing the little lid will also provide some fine motor work. There is also coordination at play with two hands: one holding the wand and one holding the bottle while the child dips the wand in it.

Parents: You can also encourage your littles to pop the bubbles in different ways: “Pop with your index finger!” “Try to grab the bubble and pop with your whole hand!” So many cues you can give your littles to get their brains and bodies doing different things.

Gross Motor Skills: Encourage your kids to jump, reach, run and skip to catch and pop the bubbles. Bubbles on the ground? Perfect for stomping or jumping on!!

Visual Tracking Skills: Following where the bubbles go will allow your littles to work on visual tracking. Some will go high, some will go low. Some move slowing, some move fast!

Sensory Processing Skills: Bubbles feel a little funny! They are wet and a little sticky! They are different from other toys kids are playing with and therefore provide great sensory play.

Oral Motor Skills: Blowing bubbles is hard work and great exercise for little mouths. Some wands are easier than others. The skinnier the want, the easier it is for a little one to make a bubble, but changing up the wand size is great for oral motor skills and also for focus and concentration skills.

Communication/Social Skills: If playing with others, taking turns will happen (or at least we hope it will J). I’ve got a two year old who isn’t so into sharing right now, but we are working on it! Also, kids will have to ask for more bubbles if their parents are blowing them. Kids will also learn spacing in groups as they don’t want to bump into each other or knock anyone down. These are all small and little things but they all add up. 

As you can see, there are so many benefits bubbles provide – hours of fun, plenty of laughs and a huge amount of developmental opportunities.

Hello everyone! There are so many things we love to do with our kids and being outside is one of them. One activity we’ve been doing is going on scavenger hunts! One of our favourite things to find or pick up = rocks!

Why rocks? I have no idea. It started about a month ago and we haven’t looked back. Every ravine walk we go on yields us a ton of prolonged fun. The kids like to pick different rocks. Sometimes we pick big, heavy rock and sometimes, the little (baby) rocks are the choice of the day.

As you know…. at Mobi we LOVE toys and activities that disguise learning and make it fun, right?! Open-ended, developmental play is the name of the game! Rocks are no different. There is no wrong way to play with them. Well, I take that back. Throwing rocks at someone is not a good idea and as you can imagine with two littles, we’ve had to have that conversation. Throwing at your sibling aside (!!), there is no wrong way to play with rocks! One of our favourite things to do with the rocks has been to paint them!

Painting rocks!

This is a great calm down activity after a day out. The kids love it and love having something beautiful to physically show after all their effort of “hunting for rocks!” seems to really excite them!

There are so many benefits that come from painting and I’ll hit on a few below:

The Brain:

Creative activities like painting exercise a different part of the brain than reading or math. The right side of the brain is often called our creative half. It is responsible for visual skills and understanding what we see with our eyes. Painting and creative play help exercise your child’s right brain.

Motor Control:

Squeezing the paint tubes into little containers, holding the fine paint brush and the act of painting ….we are working both fine and gross motor skills here. The bigger the canvas (if conventional and using paper ;) ) the more gross motor work at play.

Sensory Experience:

Painting on any surface is a beautiful sensory experience. With rocks, this is slightly heightened because there are so many edges, curves and textures. 

Cause and Effect:

We are big advocates of cause and effect play at Möbi. It is huge for development and we have tried to incorporate this into all our infant/toddler products. With painting …. kids are also working on this! For example, when a child starts out with yellow paint but mixes blue in ….. they will be able to see that that one action creates blue!

Verbal Language Skills:

As a parent you can ask open-ended questions like “what are you painting?” or “would you tell me about your painting”? As you can imagine, in our household we can some crazy answers! Rocks have become ninjas, dragons and rainbows.  Asking open-ended questions, just like open-ended play, allows your child to stretch and grow his/her thinking and verbal skills. 

Confidence:

Whether your child’s rainbow comes out looking like a rainbow or a brown clump …. They will take pride in their painting and will see in your eyes that you do too.

We would never have thought that collecting rocks would be as fun for our family as it has turned out to be. We’ve been asked if we will hang our kids’ rocks on the fridge with their other artwork! Instead we are forming a rock garden!!

What are you guys doing to keep creative? We’d love to hear from you!

Team Mobi here!

Mobi was our very first product and the point of no return for us.  We got such positive feedback from our customers that we knew we had to keep creating.  We also get so many great ideas from the teachers, parents, and kids who play Mobi that we are surprised at all the little ways people adapt Mobi to suit their needs.   In this blog post, we'll share a couple different ways that you can incorporate Mobi into your third grade math curriculum!

1) To begin with, work on identifying number patterns:

Using your Mobi number tiles, show the next 3 numbers in each pattern:

1, 2, 3, __, __, __

2, 4, 6, __, __, __

Using your Mobi number tiles, make a pattern that decreases by 3 each time:

12, 9, __, __

11, 8, __, __

2) Work on basic multiplication and use the tiles to assist you and your child when going through the multiplication tables.

3) Inverse relationships: 

Fill in the blanks using your Mobi tiles:

4 + 5 = __

5 + 5 = __

9 - 5 = __

9 - 4 = __

4) Missing equations: 

Determine the missing number tile in the following equations: 

4 x __ = 12

8 x 2 = 2 x __

10 - __ = 5 + 2

These are just a few examples of ways you can use the full Mobi set to make math a little more enjoyable for your kids.  If you've found other creative ways in your home or school, we'd love to hear from you!