Throughout March we've been promoting Orchard Toys as our supplier of the month! We love their colourful characters and think their games are fantastic for stimulating language, learning and communication.
Don't forget you can spend £10 and receive 10% off all Orchard Toys games! (*discount automatically applied at checkout; offer expires midnight 31st March 2023)
We've asked a couple of our specialty team to review their favourites for you! Here's what they say -
Eva Galova, Special Educational Needs Teacher
"Early readers love Orchard’s ‘Match & Spell’ game. First CVC (consonant vowel consonant) words on reversable word cards, with and without a visual help. It is a great learning tools to be used by parents at home or teachers in early years settings. My children were always very happy and keen to work when I took it out.
I also used it for my autistic pupils as part of their independent work tasks. We added some Velcro on the letter tiles and the word cards and the children practised their spelling independently after the initial modelling. Small letter tiles are perfect for little hands and in-hand manipulation. You can also use the letter tiles on their own, searching for the matching letter to its sound when practising letter recognition.
To make it more fun and involve all senses in multisensory learning, the letter tiles can be hidden in a rice or sand tray or spread around the room for a searching game. You can play a swap game, exchanging just one or two letters to create a new word. You can differentiate by giving children only the letters they need for each word or as they progress in their phonics knowledge, give them a larger letter selection.
Children learn to recognise letter shapes and match them correctly to a word on the word card. They learn the meaning of the word from a picture printed on the card. Once they match the letter tiles to the letters on the word side of a card few times, they will start to memorise the spelling and can progress to spelling the word on their own on the other side of the card. This side can also be used to teach children spelling from the sound talk and then blending the sounds together. They have a picture of an object to help them. Have fun learning phonics and spelling!"
Natalie Fletcher, Specialist Speech and Language Therapist
Children are so proud of being able to put these puzzles together and the lively pictures spark conversation and gestures as the characters are mid-action - just about to post a letter or cement some bricks. Farm Four is also brilliant for children who progress to the next stage or for mixed ability groups and happy sibling play! Thank you Orchard Toys."
Our Orchard Toys stock is moving fast this month so please let us know if you can't find what you're looking for. You may want to borrow from our Toy Library whilst you wait!