These cute flipping animal wind up toys have been a fun way for my son to build up strength in his fingers. Both of my kids really enjoy playing with these and these are fun to watch.

WHY WE BOUGHT THESE:

I was told that my son had low muscle tone from his first thorough evaluation at 2 1/2. I was unsure as to how to help him with fine motor strength until we started Occupational therapy about a year and a half ago. I was fortunate to be able to go in and watch how the therapist worked with him. She had a variety of wind up toys and I asked if she knew where I could get ones that would be more of a challenge for him. We had quite a few, but these were too easy to wind, so they were not really helping him to build the strength he needed.

She told me to look in lots of different places and not just the cheap dollar stores. A lot of the easy ones I had came from those type of stores. The first one I did find was the frog with the white belly. I do not remember which store he came from, but it was somewhere near where I live.

The frog was perfect. It really gave my son a challenge to wind it up. A few months later I found the yellow striped cat and the tan and brown dog at a children's toy store that was going out of business. I found these in the Plymouth Meeting Mall, which is outside of the Philadelphia area. I do not remember the name of the store, but the wind up toys were priced at $3 each and everything was 30% off.

OUR EXPERIENCES:

My son did like the frog, but kept trying to get out of playing with it because it required more strength then the other windup toys that we had at the time. We just kept working with him and giving him really good incentives to do well. My daughter was only 4 and my son was 8, but she could wind up the frog better than him.

You have to really wind up the frog fast and you need strong fingers in order to do that. You also need to not let it unwind as you do it. My daughter has gotten the hang of just turning the frog and holding the winder tightly with her fingers. My son has not been able to do that but we do get him to wind it up well enough to usually get about five flips out of the frog. I can get about 8 or 9 and so can my daughter.

I think my son had chosen the dog and my daughter the cat, but we just all work with them at the same time. The frog is still the best and steadiest flipper. It almost always lands directly on its feet after flipping over. The dog sometimes falls over when it flips, but the cat has been OK. Both kids really enjoy watching these toys flip over.

The best thing for my son has been the improvement in his handwriting. Now that he can grip a pencil tight enough, he can really make his writing be seen. Before we started Occupational Therapy, my son's handwriting was so light, you could barely make out what he was writing. We have recently stopped OT, but we continue with exercises at home. Now the windup toys are one of his favorite excercises.

WHERE TO BUY:

I would definetly check any good quality toy store to see if you can find these great toys. Searching the internet I mainly found these listed for about $2.50 at various office supply places. The least expensive price online seems to be the wares district.com website. Amazon is a little more expensive. The price there is $5.96 but you get two of the animals. None of the websites I found let you chose the animals.

AGE RECOMMENDATION:

I think this is fine for a child over 2 that will no longer put toys in their mouth. My kids have always enjoyed watching wind up toys and these that flip have been especially entertaining.