Learning Toys

These are some of the materials she uses during ABA, Occupational Therapy, and of course mommy and Aliyah time.

About a month ago Aliyah "graduated" three piece puzzles. You will notice I am a HUGE MELISSA AND DOUG FAN! The Fit-AShape Boards I purchased from Lakeshore (love their store) Aliyah now can recognize "shapes" of the puzzle pieces. She looks at the board as a whole and searches what is the best match... that was a BIG step! Great problem solving skill she has acquired! 

 All of the puzzles above Aliyah can easily do....unless she gets "lazy" and started acting like she doesn't know what she is doing... That my friends is her personality :).. my girl just wants to stop working hard and play with her other toys or better yet, her Ipad. But when she really wants to she can do all of these! ( If you would have asked me three months ago if Aliyah was able to do these I would have said "maybe next year") Aliyah has taught me to NOT  underestimate her. 

Almost forgot t mention ALiyah's favorite is the "sound puzzle" makes the animal sound when you insert the correct piece.

I try to change things up .. They both may be shape puzzles but the background of the piece did not throw off Aliyah's thinking.. she still manages to get her task done. Love the puzzle on the left.. Helped me show Aliyah all things have shape :)

The number puzzle on top with the background animals, she does great with, the 6 and 9 can get confusing for her. The 6 and 9 cannot "interchange" slots, they fit differently, making it hard on Aliyah to complete the puzzle. The number puzzle on the bottom is more difficult on Aliyah, its plain with no picture in the background. This one Aliyah tends to guess on, and some she does try for example she puts the 1 on the 7... assuming because the 7 has a straight line Aliyah is looking for when grabbing the  1. Every time I hand her a number piece we tell her the number out loud. 

We have not started working on these, but since my 2yr old can do this... and Aliyah cognitively is around a 2 year stage I am assuming its okay to expect her to be able to do these types of puzzles, matching based on color and pattern.
 

Now that she understand puzzles. Her ABA therapist is moving on puzzles pieces that make a picture and interlocking puzzles pieces. Aliyah has trouble on the "block" puzzles She doesn't understand the concept on you having to keep on turning the block until you match the other block. (It also makes animal/vehicle sounds when you paired the two correctly)

The Leap frog matching pair, she has gotten better at turning it until it fits... now all she needs to do is understand she needs to match the pieces together.

Aliyah can almost do the dog puzzle all on her own. The rest she needs hand over hand assistance. The interlocking puzzles is a goal I am hoping.. expecting her to accomplish.. I can no longer underestimate my little girl. I am not going to be the one holding her back