1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to hand held learning toys, and more particularly to hand manipulated eating and swallowing toys for development of hand and eye coordination and related pre-reading skills.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various hand manipulated toys have been proposed and implemented such as puppets, toy animal figures, stuffed animals and the like. Within this genre of toys, numerous designs and functionality's have been proposed and developed. For example U.S. Pat. No. 2,631,408 issued to Henry, Mar. 17, 1953, U.S. Pat. No. 2,762,163 issued to Stein, Sep. 11, 1956, U.S. Pat. No. 1,028,068 issued to Hamely, May 28, 1912, U.S. Pat. No. 5,580,292 issued to Gaportsin Dec. 3, 1996. While such disclosures show hand manipulated toys no patents or prior toys known to applicant disclose a hand manipulated toy which can simulate eating movements such as biting, chewing, swallowing and discharge of an object.
Accordingly, it is the primary object of this invention to provide a hand manipulated eating toy for the development of hand and eye coordination, shape recognition, enjoyment and recreation. The toy of the present invention is safe, sturdy, and is manipulated by using only the hand to control the fabric mouth and throat regions through finger and thumb manipulation which mimics biting, chewing, swallowing and discharge of an object. The present invention is both fun and educational for children to use, while teaching and developing pre-reading skills such as hand and eye coordination and object recognition.
Additional objects and advantages of the invention will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objects and advantages of the invention may be realized and obtained by means of the instrumentality's and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims.