Late last year Novita launched a Mobile Toy Library as part of the new Home Visiting service through Novita’s Community Options Parent Engagement program (COPE).

The travelling toy library is a van packed with a wide variety of educational toys, games, books and puzzles.

These can be used by families in developing the skills needed to support their children to learn through play.

The library is available to Novita kids aged 0-7 years living within the City of Salisbury suburbs of Salisbury, Paralowie and Parafield Gardens, that are enrolled in the COPE program.

Families involved in other Novita services, like speech pathology, occupational therapy and psychology and live in this area are also encouraged to take advantage of this service.

The Mobile Toy Library is completely free to use – once you register, you will have access to the library for two school terms (about 20 weeks).

Once you’ve signed-up through the COPE program, our Parent Educator, Cassandra, will visit your home once a fortnight.

She will carefully select a variety of toys that suit your child, and walk you through how to play with the toys to help your child achieve their goals and learn new skills. This could include learning the alphabet and how to spell, learning numbers and how to count, or improving their gross and fine motor skills.

Motor skills are any action that involves using muscles. there are two types, called fine motor skills and gross motor skills.

If your child has trouble with small actions like holding a pencil, colouring in or using scissors, or gets tired typing on a keyboard or using a computer mouse, they might be struggling with their fine motor skills.

If your child has trouble with bigger actions that use their arms, legs or entire body, like crawling, walking, running or jumping, they might be struggling with their gross motor skills.

Mum Tennille and her two girls Jasmine, aged 5, and Isabella, aged 3, moved to Salisbury North at the end of last year and were one of the first families to sign up for the Mobile Toy Library.

Jasmine had not been able to write or draw when she started the program, so Cassandra recommended some magic writing boards and practice writing cards for Jasmine to trace words and pictures. She can now clearly write her name all on her own.

Tennille’s other daughter Isabella has been learning about the concept of size. With the help of her Mum and Cassandra, Isabella has expanded her vocabulary and understanding of spatial awareness (how you perceive yourself within a space) using toys from the library.

Cassandra also helped Jasmine get ready for reception at school and worked with Tennille to give her the confidence to work with Jasmine’s teachers.

“Our time in the program has been educational for both me and my girls,” Tennille said.

“It has been intriguing to watch my girls with the toys, and how they use them to play and communicate with each other,” she said.

“Our home visitor Cassandra has been really open to questions and was able to help and share her knowledge with us. I would recommend the toy library 100 times over!”

If you’d like to register for this free service please call us on 1300 NOVITA (1300 668 482), or email us on [email protected]