I'm on the lookout for hands-on educational materials that are toddler-friendly (no obvious choking hazards, not too many parts that could get lost, etc.), but suitable for children whose skills are well beyond the toddler stage. The academic level could be anywhere from pre-K to middle school. Not that my toddler is anywhere near that advanced, but he has a knack for getting his hands on everything his older siblings are using.

I'm especially interested in coming up with some basic math manipulatives, such as base 10 material and colored rods. Ideally, these would be similar in configuration to the Montessori materials, which my older ones have used at school. I've considered using Duplo, but it isn't quite the right shape (and besides, it would just get broken up and turned into spaceships).

One idea that came to mind was to make small crocheted or cloth balls that could be sewn or velcroed together. I think this would be cute and fun, though it would also be a lot of work. If you can think of anything easier -- maybe something ready-made that could be adapted? -- I'm all ears.

I'd also appreciate any suggestions for reusable plastic sleeves that could be used to protect items we're currently using, such as charts, maps, and cards. They'd need to be much sturdier than a standard page protector, and come in a range of sizes. So far, the best options seem to be rigid ID badge holders and restaurant menu covers, but maybe I'm missing something obvious. (We do have a laminator, but I'd rather not put a permanent layer of plastic on things we're only using briefly.)

Ideas would be much appreciated!

I don't own this, but I keep trying to figure out an excuse to buy it -

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00125V99S/ref=ord_cart_shr?ie=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER

Perhaps teach the older sibs to crochet so they can help you make those balls? Or use 'granny squares' as manipulatives?

Have you looked at the leapster products?

I wish I had more ideas.

Grinity

Sorry, I don't have many ideas, but I'd love to hear some ideas too!

What about table tennis balls? You could stick velco on them?

Asfor the protectors, I'm not sure... We have a clear plastic cover over our table and we sometimes put things under there. You can't actually handle them then though.

http://www.discountschoolsupply.com/product/ProductDetail.aspx?product=7638

Go Google ! �Hee Hee. ��
This looks usable. �The wood pattern blocks on the bottom have showed up in a few conversations on the forums. �Apparently the nerdy kids love them and they get a lot of use. �I don't know how big the pieces are. �My guy has seen the picture and been begging for them. �He loves tanagrams. �He started those on the iPhone though.

I don't know what to tell you about the Montessori style, could you make what you need out of clay? �I've seen more Waldorf blogs with ideas for toddlers. �(measuring, pouring) Montessori is more geared to preschool. ��

What do you have in mind for middle school material for a toddler? �There's the hands on algebra method that teaches algebra to eight year olds using a plastic balance. �Speaking of which, let me go post that in the "vsl teaching math backwards" thread. �

Trio blocks are great. �They stay snapped together really well. �I love the size. �Maybe you could make your rods out of those. �My guy was 2.5 before his hands were strong enough to snap them together. �They fit much tighter than the baby legos and hold better.

Sorry I couldn't be more help here, even though I was just in the toddler stage. �I just gave him stuff with small pieces. �He used to love the board game perfection (without the timer). �But he never liked the toddler chunky board puzzles. �I'm really not helping here. �

My guy has good motor skills. �I went with it and bought handy manny's motorcycle at age 2 last year for Christmas. � It's hard to describe but the large plastic screws stay attached to the removable bike parts (muffler and stuff). �But the screws and nuts turn and really work to attach/change out parts with a little screw driver and wrench. �No chocking hazard. � http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d.html/ref=redir_mdp_mobile/190-3449192-5346017?a=B001W1UG96
Now that he's mastered the screwdriver and wrench I was able to buy him an erector set for his upcoming 3rd birthday. �I'm sure I'll assemble stuff for him to take apart for a while. �I'm sure he'll love it. �And I plan to buy him a snap together first circuit board for Christmas. �These are built on the skills from the motorcycle assembly though.

That's why I didn't post sooner, because it's not quite the answer you're looking for. �But I couldn't resist sharing how my guy went from late toddler into early preschool toy-wise. �Is two a toddler? �He was just past ankle-biter into the tricycle motor stage, you know the sound.

LaTexican, the materials wouldn't necessarily all be for my toddler to use. It's just that we have several young children who tend to roam in a pack. The little ones want to do whatever the big ones are doing, and vice versa. Because of this, small-parts items are a big pain right now, and probably will continue to be a problem for the next couple of years. I try to keep them to a minimum, and have a strict rule of keeping them out of the family room, which is the children's main play area and hangout.

I tried following the link that you posted, but it just came up with some bins of plastic toddler toys. Were you talking about the Learning Resources parquetry blocks? We have those, and they're great. Unfortunately, the pattern sheets are flimsy cardboard that's easily bent. I've been trying to avoid laminating them, as it makes the pages slippery, but I think I'll have to do it anyway.

The Trio looks like it would be lots of fun for my gang, but apparently it's a choking hazard. I wonder if that applies to the blocks themselves, or just the accessory doo-dads?


On a more positive note, we just got a catalog in the mail from the Constructive Playthings school division, and they have a few neat things.

* Duplo-compatible letter and number bricks. These are chunkier than the ones sold by Lego Education, which are more like thin tiles (I'm not sure if they're even toddler-safe). The set doesn't seem to include any math symbols, but I can make my own with stickers. I'm not sure what we'd use these tiles for, but I'm sure we could come up with many ideas. At the very least, they'd be a good alternative to the little plastic fridge magnets.

The Duplo wall play sets would go very well with these tiles, but holy cow, that's a lot of $$$. I'm thinking I could make something similar by sticking a couple of green baseboards onto the wall with 3M adhesive strips, or even just by clipping one to an easel.

* Jumbo 10x10 clear plastic pegboard with chunky pegs. I'm thinking we could put velcro dots on the back and attach homemade activity sheets, similar to the ones that come with this smaller pegboard from Quercetti. Instead of just having pictures to copy, we could also have patterning activities, a hundred square, a place value chart, some basic geometry, and who knows what else.

Both items are a bit pricey, but cheaper than hiring someone to keep an eagle eye on my toddler all day.


Amazon also has a jumbo checkers set that says it's safe for all ages. Not too exciting, but the checkers could be used as pieces for other games.

And here's another possibility for the "golden math beads": buy a bunch of cheap orange ping-pong balls, drill holes in them, and thread them on dowels.


I'll do some experimenting in the next few weeks, and report any positive results on the Recommended Resources board.

Yeah, I meant the buckets of plastic things. �They looked versatile for construction and sorting. �And they're marketed for toddlers so no choking and their little hands are strong enough to build with them. �The trio are great but my son couldn't use them until 2.5 because they take too much strength in the hands. �These buckets looked more toddler friendly.
Sorry. �That's why I didn't post the first day you asked so you had time to get more Montessori-related responses. �The pattern things I'm saying everybody seems to like are the $11 things at the bottom right hand side on that page. �They're just colored geometric flat wooden blocks.

So it turns out that the company that makes the big see-through pegboard (Gigo, based in Taiwan) also makes something called Jumbo Connect-A-Cube. They're just basic 40 mm linking cubes, a great math manipulative that's safe for toddlers and up. Similar to Trio, but without any of the extra bits we don't need.

Alas, they don't seem to be sold by any North American dealers. I'm going to ask around to see if they can be special ordered.

What we need is someone to start an online store specializing in safe-for-all-ages toys and manipulatives like these. I think they'd be popular with lots of people, including parents of bright toddlers, families with multiple children (especially homeschoolers), mixed-age daycare facilities, and gift-givers who are looking for something that will last.

Of course, they wouldn't be so popular with the major toy companies... the ones whose advertising has conditioned most of the population to buy a whole new batch of thingamajigs, whatchamacallits, and extruded plastic dinguses (dingi?) for each age group. Come to think of it, I guess my proposal jeopardizes a large segment of the US economy. Oh well.

Well here's a unique online toystore http://www.fatbraintoys.com/toys/toy_categories/wooden_toys/index.cfm
They have so many categories and so many toys, including the new balance bike, and retro toys, and special needs categories. If you want to start a great online toy store there's your competition. You've still found a great unserved niche community. It could be a very successful business for you, and one that your kids could help build and then inherit.

Hmm... didn't mean to imply that the "someone" would be me. I only have about, let's see, -3 hours of free time per day. But I do think there would be a market for these kinds of materials. Just Google "sibling toys choking"; it's a significant concern for pretty much any family with more than one child.

For my part, I'm going to work on coming up with games and activity cards to go with the materials we already have.

Just some notes from today's shopping/research trip.

Trio blocks are about a 1" cube, which I think is considered too small for toddlers. (At least, all the 1" cube manipulatives I've seen are rated for ages 3+.)

Duck brand tape is $3.99/roll at Michaels, and comes in all the Montessori math bead colors. I'm thinking it might be easiest just to make the squares and cubes from cardboard, cover them with the appropriate color of tape, and mark off the squares with black pen. I'd still try not to let the littlest ones have them unsupervised, but if they did get hold of them, I doubt there would be much damage (to either the toddlers or the math kit ).

The Dollar Tree has sturdy cardboard turn-the-wheel fact finders about dinosaurs, animals, US states, and US presidents. I bought a few copies of the states and presidents ones, so we can make up questions ("What's the state flower of Wyoming?") and race to see who comes up with the answer first. They also have some lift-the-flap board books that teach about the US presidents, the 50 states, and world geography. Straight from the land of asynchronous (product) development.

Great idea! And also if one of your other kids is old enough you can instruct them how to make some (blocks, at least) out of yarn and plastic canvas. I googled plastic canvass balls, but those are pricey. Might have to stick with home-made canvass ten-base blocks instead of large plastic canvass "beads". I remember using plastic canvass to make barbie doll furniture following a pattern when I was nine. Good times.

Oh yeah, that would work too! Thanks for the suggestion. I have a crafty 1st grader who's always making stuff. I'm not sure if she's ready for crocheting yet (she still sometimes gets frustrated about tying her shoes), but she does okay with sewing flat toys made of felt. I think she could do *something* with plastic canvas. And the tactile aspect would be great.

Thinking of other ways to use my yarn stash... I bet her younger brother could be taught to spool knit a bunch of "worms" in various colors. Then I could sew them into game pieces/counters/lunar landing pads/etc.

Just for future reference:

I went to a talk by a local child safety group. They said that a good rule of thumb is that if you can fit it through the inner cardboard tube of a roll of toilet paper, it is a chocking hazard for an under three year old. Might be handy to know if you are making your own manipulatives.

Thanks, GeoMamma. This would certainly be a quick and easy method. The down side is that a toilet roll is much bigger than the standard testing tube, ~1.6" vs ~1.25" diameter. Many common toddler toys such as Duplo figures would go through it easily.

The toilet roll is also open at both ends, so it rules out long and narrow items such as chunky dowels or twistable crayons. AFAIK, these are very unlikely to cause serious choking incidents. The standard test allows them, since the tube is about 2 - 2.5" long with a sloped bottom.

According to the official standards, one example of a toddler-safe game piece would be the 2 3/8" long peg people that are used in wooden school bus toys. These would be handy for lots of activities. I'd love to find a place that sells them in different (non-toxic) colors.

Safety 1st sells the standard testing tubes for home use; you can sometimes find them at toy stores. Ours seems to have gone missing, but it seems to me that a 1" cube might be okay, since the diagonal measurement would be sqrt(2), which is more than 1.25. But I'm not sure about this. I'm kind of spatially challenged.

I said I'm not much use here even though my guy's just entering the pre-school years. �I just gave him stuff with small pieces. �The perfection game is definitely a chocking hazard. �But he was an only child (until next month). �

I was suggesting building the cuisineaire rods (sp?) and base ten blocks out of the trio. �A toddler could not use Trio because their hands are not strong enough because it is a pre-schoolers toy. �I just thought the square trio cubes were bigger than the base ten pieces. �And it's cheap, like $5/box.

If you want something larger.. I've given it more thought, could you use those pop-together toddler beads to make your rods and golden beads?

You know when I looked into Montessori and wished the classes were cheaper and closer I decided to try to make my own golden beads. �I decided instead of using little glass beads and earring wires I'd use pony beads and leather so my son could help me string the beads. �Now I'm stuck with a bucket of ten-count bead strings because I never found a way to make flat 100 squares out of them. �When I bought it I had in mind that I could use embroidery floss and weave together the the 10 strands �to build 100 sheets. �Didn't work to my liking. �They were too wavy. �Tried hot glue, it wasn't sturdy. �Hope this next kid is a daughter so I have a use for a ton of plastic beads.

Hey, if you have a crafty child, you might even end up needing to buy more beads. I thought we had a huge supply, especially after buying a couple of 400-packs of pony beads at the dollar store, but DD6 has gone through an amazing quantity of them in a day of frenzied bead-animal-making.

Anyway, I think I've solved our math manipulative dilemma in a way that's completely different way from what I was considering. La Texican, it was your post about making the beads yourself that made me think of it. Here's the plan:

We already have a bunch of the standard Montessori bead chains. If I just hook a large metal split ring (the kind used for key rings) onto the end of each of the smaller chains, then they're no longer a major choking hazard. They're also much less likely to roll under the furniture and get lost. And we could use the big rings to hang them on a peg rack on the wall for storage. I could paint each peg the appropriate color, and even the most uncoordinated and non-math-adept munchkins could have a go at matching them up.

They're still not something I'd want the little guy chewing on, but if he happens to get hold of them, no big deal.

So that's a huge relief. The older ones can go back to using their beloved math beads, without too much investment of time or effort on my part.

Just for fun, I think I might still do one set each of the ping-pong "golden beads" and the cardboard "colored bead stair." I think they'd make a very effective first presentation for slightly older toddlers.

Hey Lighthouse, I was just reading some kind of family magazine. A lady was describing a homemade board game she made and said she finished it up by covering it with clear contact paper. I never noticed clear contact paper before, but I've never looked. Just thought maybe it would work to protect papers you won't be using that many times.