More Than Play
BUSY POPPIN' PALS
Lions, pandas and monkeys, oh my! Children love bright colors, cute animals and fun surprises—and the PLAYSKOOL BUSY POPPIN’ PALS combines all three! As your child uses her little fingers to slide, push, press, turn and click each colorful button, she is rewarded by each friendly animal face that bursts out of its colored, numbered box. She’s gaining finger strength and practicing fine motor skills while exercising her memory. And if you talk and play together, you can help her learn to recognize colors, numbers and animals!
It’s More Than Play... This Toy Also Teaches:
Memory
Cause & Effect
Fine Motor Skills
Object Permanence
Hand-Eye Coordination
Problem Solving
Control of Muscle Strength
Memory
Creating a memory, and learning information, is a complicated process that takes lots of practice! These Poppin’ Pals can help little ones exercise their memories by providing a fun opportunity to try to remember which animal buddy is hiding under which door. To get her favorite animal pal to pop up, your little one will have to recall which button to push, turn, slide or click. These pop-up pals also provide a fun, real, context for children to learn and remember their numbers and animal names. Each brightly colored door has a number on it, from one to five. As each animal springs to life, she can see the number on the door, and associate it with the number of animals she has grinning gleefully at her! And if mom counts along out loud, the sound of the number can add to the learning. All of these cues can be brought together to help create understanding, and a more meaningful memory. This practice is important, as she’ll need to use her memorization skills all throughout her life—whether she’s memorizing her phone number for the first time or studying for her first school test.
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Cause & Effect
“If I turn this key, a lion leaps up! If I push this door, he disappears again!” Learning that their actions can cause reactions is a skill that children learn through trial and error. Playing with these pop-up pals can help children learn about cause & effect, because it relies on the child’s interaction (pushing, turning and clicking buttons) to initiate an outcome (an animal pal pops up). Understanding cause & effect not only empowers children to control their play, it also helps them learn how to figure out how lots of everyday objects work—from telephones to televisions!
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Fine Motor Skills
Every time your child twists, turns or flips one of the colorful switches on the BUSY POPPIN’ PALS, she is developing different muscles in her fingers and learning new ways to move her hands. The BUSY POPPIN’ PALS encourage fine motor skills because each smiling animal face requires a different finger movement to make it pop! Fine motor skills are the small, refined muscle movements needed to perform delicate tasks. Muscles in the fingers and hands need to be strong and agile in order to control and manipulate buttons, snaps and zippers and tie shoelaces.
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Object Permanence
When the doors on the BUSY POPPIN’ PALS are closed, your child can’t see any of the smiley animal pals. But as soon as she presses, twists or turns each button, her animal friends return again! As children grow, they start to understand that just because something disappears out of sight, that doesn’t mean it’s gone forever. When children understand that objects still exist even when they can’t be seen, they understand object permanence. Children begin to learn about object permanence when they play games like peek-a-boo, stuff blocks behind the sofa cushions so they disappear from view or search for toys that have gone missing under the coffee table. Understanding object permanence can help children find lost toys and develop curiosity!
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Hand-Eye Coordination
When your child presses, pushes, twists or turns each piece of the BUSY POPPIN’ PALS, she’s getting her hands and eyes to work together. This skill is called hand-eye coordination, and it takes a lot of practice to perfect! Good hand-eye coordination is a critical foundation skill—necessary for success in tasks as diverse as drawing a picture, catching a football or playing the piano.
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Problem Solving
Figuring out which way to move, click, push or twist each button on the BUSY POPPIN’ PALS requires a little luck, some trial and error and good problem-solving skills! As children play, they learn to make their own decisions, develop independent thinking and begin to understand the consequences of their choices. Once they understand the results of their actions, they may modify their play to achieve a different effect. If your child wants to see a monkey and realizes that twisting the blue key will make a lively lion spring up, she might decide to try another button instead! Problem solving is an essential skill that children use to put together puzzles, solve simple math problems or fit all of their favorite toys in their backpacks.
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Control of Muscle Strength
When your child pushes the button, turns the twisty key or clicks the switch from side to side, she’s developing control in the muscles in her hands. Controlling your muscle movements is actually a learned skill. Control of muscle strength helps children to understand their own power and to judge how much force to apply to an object. Good control of muscle strength is a skill they’ll use for all types of activities—from softly hugging a hamster to rolling a perfect ball of cookie dough!
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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:
- Talk to your child about each animal featured in the BUSY POPPIN’ PALS. What are they called? Where do they live? What noises do they make?
- Ask your child to say the number on each box as it pops up. Try popping the pals in random order to really give her a challenge!
- Count along as each animal pops up. Then try counting backward for an even bigger challenge!
- Ask your child which number corresponds with which animal, and which animal corresponds with which color. You’ll be helping her learn her colors and numbers, and also exercising her memory.
- Talk about which colors are alike and which colors are different. What colors are the animals? What colors are the boxes? What colors are the buttons?
- As your child plays with the toy, point out each number and ask her to trace the digit with her finger. Seeing the shapes of numbers again and again helps children develop visual memory, and the more times your child is exposed to the visual shape of the number, the more quickly she will recognize it.
