Not sure about your toddlers, but my girl is really hooked on Dora the Explorer cartoon. She loves to watch it, and interacts with Dora and Boots like they are real and not cartoon characters. Guess that's normal at this age. :) Still, I prefer her TV watching time to be Dora then some of the more violent cartoons (and there is too many of those these days!). With Dora she learns her colors, shapes, counts and what's even more important, she learns about value of friendship. So, I let her watch Dora.
Her love for this cartoon caused to collect some of the items attached to these characters so we ended up with couple of Dora books, backpack, few plush dolls, etc.
For every little Dora fan, there is a big collection of items on Amazon.com and we ended up with 3 pretty different books (all received as gifts!):
This book is really in the form of the lunch box! :) It has a little handle on the top and it closes using velcro. Inside, along with a story, there are simple shapes of the food to for tots to remove and put back. Nice little practice for motor skills.
My girl didn't see this kind of books before we got this one so she was pretty intrigued with the fact that there are places on each of the pages where she could scratch with her finger and smell the object story mentioned on that page. This is, after year and a half, still one of her favorite books. Story is simple and in fashion of all Dora adventures, her and Boots need to go through few stops / challenges to reach Issa's garden party. Short and sweet.
3rd book we have in our home library is Baby Animals!
Another simple book that helps toddler count from one - five. It has a wheel on the bottom right side so my girl usually looks for the right animals after counting how many are on the page.
After a while, I've decided to "use" her love for Dora the Explorer and turn it into a learning experience. With couple Dora stickers, I've created for her memory cards, reusable counting cards and write and wipe off book from old photo album. All of this fits nicely in her Dora backpack. Complete set looks like this:
You can read more about what's inside that backpack in Dora the Explorer Backpack: a parent's review article.
This Sunday, we'll host
a new giveaway....
this time prize will be
for all little Dora fans:
You can check details on Amazon.com
And make sure to stop by Sunday and enter our giveaway! :)
Before you click away from here ;) I would love to know which is your toddler's favorite cartoon character and do you manage to turn their love for that specific cartoon into learning and playing time?
I, personally, likes Dora. The television show teaches the little ones of basic learning foundation. This show is very educational.
ReplyDeleteMy Grandson LOVES Handy Manny, & we've used the books/tools as counting aids, as well as learning colors, etc ;-) ((1955nursehjc4me(at)myway(dot)com))
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