More Than Play
POUNDIN' BEDBUGS
Bang, bang, smash, smoosh! Your child will love the silly fun he has hammering the PLAYSKOOL POUNDIN’ BEDBUGS—the bugs that just won’t get out of bed! These cute, colorful insects bounce up and down as your child squashes them with the pint-sized plastic hammer. Your child will have a blast trying to keep up with his buggy opponents, and he’ll practice important hand-eye coordination. Best of all, he gets practice copying “grown-up” behavior without abusing your furniture!
It’s More Than Play... This Toy Also Teaches:
Hand-Eye Coordination
Control of Muscle Strength
Gross Motor Skills
Fine Motor Skills
Hand-Eye Coordination
When your child holds the hammer and aims for the colorful bedbugs below him, he’s learning hand-eye coordination. Learning to make his hands and eyes work together takes a lot of practice and repetition, and the playful, popping bedbugs provide great motivation to keep your child trying. Hand-eye coordination is a critical foundation skill necessary for success in everything from painting and writing, to playing baseball and tennis.
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Control of Muscle Strength
Hitting the POUNDIN’ BEDBUGS helps your child develop a basic understanding of how much force needs to be applied in order to push each bug down. This allows him to learn about his own strength and to control the movements of his muscles. Muscle awareness allows children to pat a pet or hug a friend without hurting them, or play with a toy without breaking it.
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Gross Motor Skills
As your child lifts his arm and pushes the hammer down on each bedbug, he’s using the major muscles in his shoulder, arm and wrist. These big muscle movements are called gross motor skills. Children develop their bodies from the center out—first they learn to control the head and upper body, followed by the trunk and arms and, finally, they refine the movements of the hands and fingers. That means in order to be able to paint, draw or use a pair of scissors, your child needs to master major muscle movements first.
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Fine Motor Skills
When your child grips the hammer with his hand or pushes the bugs down with his tiny little fingers, he’s building his finger muscles and practicing fine motor skills. Fine motor skills are the small, refined muscle movements needed to perform delicate tasks. Developing fine motor skills requires a lot of practice doing things like picking up an object like the hammer, or pushing down objects like the bedbugs. Fine motor skills are the foundation for a number of future skills, including holding and using silverware when he begins to feed himself.
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Learn more—together!
Want to join the fun? Playing with your child can boost his learning, and it gives him more time to bond with you! Try these simple tips to enhance your child’s play experience:
- Help your little one learn his colors by naming each bedbug color as your child pushes it down. Then ask your child to hit specific colored bedbugs to reinforce his understanding.
- Encourage your child to use different fingers to push down the bugs instead of using the hammer. This helps develop individual finger strength.
- Children learn vocabulary best when words are accompanied by physical experiences. As your child hits each bug, yell out the bug’s color. As the bugs bounce and change direction, talk about the difference between up and down. The more a child
