Despite my love of cleaning and gardening, I just don’t have the time any more. I used to be cleaning obsessed before I had children, and loved tending to my vegetable patches but now I kind of lack interest in it because if I get 5 minutes to myself, I just want, and need, to sit down!
However, I do still have to pick up the hoover and polish every now and again, but mostly when Ted’s in bed since he just wants to sit on it as he’s fascinated and I can’t actually do anything, which leaves Toby and I to have a little time together. So we’ve turned cleaning into a game so that he finds it fun and thinks we’re doing something really lovely together. I’ve got my cleaning things, and he has his.
His New Sprouts Cleaning Set consists of 6 plastic pieces that he can role play with, all while helping me out of course! They’re nice and chunky and really durable too, which you kind of need with Toby as he can be so heavy handed. In his head he is totally helping out with the housework and will even prompt me to squirt some polish on a surface so that he can wipe it. The imaginative play opportunities are great because while it’s all pretend, it’s something that’s really happening too, and something he’ll be helping out with in the future, which is why it’s so important to make it fun.
Toby’s speech has come on leaps and bounds in the past four weeks despite him still not saying much so it’s great to have new object vocabulary to put forward to him to learn, rather than trying get him to learn the same words over and over. It’s handy to let him play on his own with this too, I can usually get on in another room and he gets to ‘go over’ what I’ve already done, and he jabbers away to himself while he’s doing his share of the chores!
I love that the pieces are nice and big and really easy to hold, but they are mostly rubberised PVC and/or durable plastic. Personally I’d have liked there to have been a bit more of a sensory element and would like them to have been a little more life like. However, all six pieces (toy dustpan and brush, plastic spray bottle, handheld hoover, scrubbing sponge and bottle of cleaner) are all brightly coloured and are really appealing (not like mine, boring!).
We’ve also been getting ready for the return of the better weather with Toby’s New Sprouts Grow It! set. Our garden is set to have a mini makeover on the 9th May and we’re going to be getting some pot plants and flowers to pop outside for a bit of low maintenance gardening with the boys. Toby and Ted both adore being outdoors and they’ll both bolt for the door at any given opportunity, plus Toby’s been getting green fingered with his Pop on the weekends. But when it’s raining and rubbish outside, this set is a great way to bring the outdoors in and without the mess.
This is a nine piece set (watering can, three plastic pots, two flowers, a hand shovel, two vegetables) and is made of the same material as before. Again, the only thing I would change would be slightly more sensory components, but other than that Toby loves this kit. He has been planting the flowers and vegetables, watering them and then trying to eat the whole thing, which is good I suppose since I can’t get him to try much new food.
We’ve been doing this mostly as a table top activity but once I get our garden things we’re going to take it outdoors and do it all for real, which I’m really excited about. I love that this is also really colourful, but not totally unrealistic and he’s happy to play with it and talk himself through what he’s doing. It’s so lovely to have one of those toys they can play with on their own, but feeds their imagination at the same time. It beats sitting on an iPad!
I love that he’s learning all the time with these sets. I’ll now usually find the watering can in the bath as well as he loves to water the taps and his little brother’s head too!