This week we have had loads of fun playing with our new WAFF creative combo journal - a notebook with a soft and fun to touch silicone cover, making it extra good for sensory play! (For proof - Arthur licked this as soon as he got his hands on it!) the notebook can be customised with the Waff Cubes - a little bit like amazing, tactile, soft Lego that fits on top of your book - but much more 'pressable' ! Once in place they look like little buttons which are so satisfyingly squishable, I could literally waste hours doing just that!
The Waff Cubes are available in Letters, Numbers, Colourful cubes, Emojis & Glitter cubes to really customise your notebook and make it unique. We have an extra set of glitter letters and also numbers and the journal comes with some letters and blank colour cubes as standard.
This journal is great for school or everyday use...and which child, teenager or procrastinating blogger wouldn't love something like this to fiddle with??! But of course, you know me, I like to use my resources for much smaller humans wherever possible - under the objective of learning through play. So....how can you use this as a learning opportunity?? Apart from being brilliant for fine motor skills and developing the pincer grip, here are a few different ways that you can use the Waff notebook and cubes with your child:
Letter and name matching and recognition:
Arthur absolutely loved finding the letters for the names of special people in his life, such as /D/ for Daddy, /M/ for Mummy, /E/ for Ellie etc ... Because these letters correspond to names, we have been learning and recognising capital letters. Usually, when I have taught phonics with my class in school I have taught the letter sounds corresponding to the lower case letters. It would be nice to have a full set of upper case and a full set of lower case letters so that we can match these up.
For older toddlers, challenging them to produce their name, or match the letters to their name underneath one that you have laid out can really help.
Number recognition, ordering and 1:1 correspondence:
Randomly placing the numbers on a surface and asking your child to find a particular one is great for helping with number recognition. Similarly, once they are ready - challenge them to place the numbers in order starting with 1-5 first, then 1-10 and then 1-20. This number set only has individual digits 0-9, hopefully Waff will make a set of higher numbers in the near future!
For 1:1 correspondence, asking your child to touch and count each button in turn is much easier with cubes as sensory as this!
Repeating patterns:
Another one for mathematical development - the plain coloured cubes work well for this activity! No explanation needed here...
Role play:
My favourite out of all the activity options! We made a calculator/till for our shop and a laptop! Let your little one play and just add the learning in as they go through vocab and questioning. Eg: " well done, you have pressed the letter /s/ for Sarah", "This customer bought 2 apples, can you press the number 2 on the till?....oh, they want 1 more...what will that be?"
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| Role play laptop |
Any improvements?
I love this product, it is so tactile and fun for both adults and children, but there are three small things that would make it even better for me - coming from a 'learning opportunities' point of view:
- I would like to be able to purchase full sets of both upper and lower case letters to tie in with phonics, reading, writing and letter formation in the early years.
- I would like to be able to purchase cubes with higher numbers to tie in with number recognition and ordering in the Early Years
- I would like to be able to purchase replacement notebooks to fit inside the covers - 190 pages doesn't last as long for list makers like me ( or scribblers like Arthur!)
Note: This A5 Notebook included: (190 Lined Pages) + 1 Silicone Cover + 2 Clips + 50 Letter Cubes + 50 Colour Cubes. We also received 1 set of 100 maths cubes and 1 set of 100 glitter alphabet cubes in return for an honest review.