Lego catalogue ideas {and a Giveaway winner}

Lego catalogues... they are loved in my home. They are read and re-read until they completely fall apart, but you dare not throw them away.

Big One has always loved lego.  Little One has been playing with the bigger lego blocks since he was very young, but it was about a month before his fourth birthday that the "mini lego switch" went on in his brain. He now plays with the mini-figurines day in and day out. I have felt quite sorry for the cars and construction vehicles that have been so loved up until now. It reminds me to enjoy every stage and phase - it doesn't last forever.

So seeing all these poor falling apart lego catalogues, I decided to give myself a whole lot of work and make longer lasting lego books. To make, I used nice A4 sized coloured cardboard and Flip Files. I cut down the double lego pages and pasted it onto the card and popped it into the book. Now hopefully these special catalogues can last for a bit longer.

After I had made these, I realised the wonderful opportunity that this book provides for language enrichment. Any lego-loving child, who struggles with language, would enjoy looking at these action-packed pages, and it then provides a nice tool for speech therapists to use to engage a child and talk about the picture. You can also use the different scenes to "find things" on the pages. 

And one more idea... I have also converted some of the pictures into puzzles. 

I wonder what else I could do with a lego catalogue?

One last exciting thing before I leave you - I recently had a giveaway and I do have a winner for you! Thank you to my international readers who try as they might couldn't access the Little People's Products Facebook page. I gave you the extra entry for your effort. And the winner...Briana Richardson :). Congrats Briana...I'll be in touch with you shortly. 

Till next time...have fun.

Books by Tara

April is Autism Awareness Month and I hope to bring you some Autism related posts this month (I had better get a move on...it's the 9th already!)

Today I want to tell you a little about Books By Tara. Tara, whose own son was diagnosed with Autism, found that there are very few "simple" books on the market that are designed for older children. With this in mind, she decided to create her own books. These books focus on a specific theme and use photographs to explore each theme. The books are also spiral-bound, which is great for isolating the pictures while teaching or "reading".

Tara found that these books help establish a mutual focus and this in turn provides an opportunity for social connections. The books also provide opportunities for fun discussions and in turn language skills are practised and enrichment takes place. Tara states it beautifully when she says, "all children require engaging experiences with caring adults to truly thrive linguistically." Tara has a variety of fun titles, including Holes and Tall, and shares lots of ideas on how to use her books on her website.

Last year I was fortunate enough to win a copy of Water through a competition run by Memetales and was, according to Tara, the first person in South Africa to see one. If you would like to read a free online version of this book, follow the Water link above and you can read it on the Memetales website. To see how we (Big One and I) won it, click here.

Would you like to win a book too? Every month one lucky subscriber to Tara's newsletter stands a chance to win a book. How awesome is that!

There is so much one can write about Autism. Is there anything that you would like me to specifically write about. If you do have any suggestions, please leave me a comment or email me.