Top 10 Favourite Kids Toys that 'Go Pop'

Children love toys that go pop.  Here are my top 10 favourite:

The toys below are all toys I use in my therapy sessions frequently.  They're fun toys that can be used everyday at home to stimulate a child's development and communication or to motivate them with speech and language practice.  If parents decide to purchase them for motivating their child during speech and language practice my advice would be to keep them in a separate box for use when you're targeting speech and language skills so that they don't lose their novelty factor.  

Number 1: Bubbles

​My favourite therapy tool would have to be bubbles.  Great for young children to learn early vocabulary words like ‘more’, ‘bubbles’, ‘pop’, ‘up’, ‘down’, ‘my turn’, ‘your turn’ and ‘big’.  Great for encouraging joint attention and simple ‘turn taking’  with mum or dad as they learn how to pop and blow bubbles.  There are several good bubble brands on the market that can be purchased from larger retailers.

Number 2 : ​Pop toy such as 'Pig Goes Pop', ‘Jumping Jack’ or ‘Pop Up Pirate’. 

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Pig Goes Pop

​These are just fun toys for kids to play with but can also be great for motivating a child to have a go saying their target speech words or as a reward following their speech and language practice.  Great for teaching early counting skills, colours and turn taking skills.  

​Number 3: Wooden pop-up toy for toddlers

Great for teaching cause-effect, hand-eye coordination, fine motor skills, joint attention and turn taking skills.  Introduces children to colour concepts and kids love making the little peg people pop-up.  This toy is a particular favourite with the Occupational Therapists I work with.

Number 4: ​Pop Up Friends

​The farmyard friends pop up version of this toy is my favourite as some of the other toy theme characters can be a bit difficult for toddlers to work out what they are or the buttons can be a bit challenging to activate.  Great for teaching early vocabulary (e.g. open, close) and animal sounds for speech production, good for problem solving and learning cause-effect.

Number 5: Mr Funny Faces

I found this toy for sale in one of the major retailers and loads of kids I've worked with have loved it.  ​The idea is to make a funny face using the different face pieces, turn on the count down timer and wait for it to count down to 0 and all the pieces pop off the face.  Good for higher level matching skills as it comes with funny face picture cards.  Good for learning face body parts.  I've often use it during speech therapy practice as a reward for attempting target words.  Kids love the anticipation of waiting for the funny face pieces to go pop!  Just make sure you move the game far enough away from the child as soon as they turn on the count down timer and let them know what is going to happen so they don’t get a fright when the pieces pop off.   Also some kids may need a little bit of adult support with this game as the pieces can sometimes be a little challenging for tiny hands to put on the face.

Number 6: Push and go 'Pop Up' Vehicle

​Great for engaging a child in joint attention, turn taking and learning early vocabulary (e.g. car, truck. plane, ready set go, my turn, your turn). Kids love watching the car, truck or plane drive along as the little person or character pops up!

Number 7: Stomp Rocket​

​A particularly great motivator for young boys!  I've found this rocket is a good reinforcer in between therapy activities or at the end of speech and language practise to motivate children who find it challenging to sit still for too long.  Best done outside if possible, with parent supervision and away from any roof that it might get stuck on.

Number 8: Toddler Merry Go Round 'Push and Pop'

​Great for cause-effect and developing early turn taking skills.  Ones like this one in the picture with balls that spin around and go ‘pop’ are often favourites.  The ones that the balls only spin for a short time I find work best as this promotes greater opportunity for turn taking.

Number 9: Wiggly Worm Game

A great fun game for pre-schoolers and Kindergarten kids! ​Kids love trying to catch the worms as they pop up.  Great for fine motor skills, colour matching and useful for rewarding speech and language activities.

Number 10: Nose Poppers

My 7 year old son loves this one (he has the pig one) as do younger kids I treat.  A fun reward toy to have a play with or use in home speech therapy practice.  You could place speech therapy cards on a board and whichever one the  ball hits the child has to tell what the picture is.