Our wooden toys make perfect gifts for “truckers” young and old.
Video Rating: 5 / 5
Making a Wooden Top with a bandsaw, drillpress and a few sanding tools. This toy will be sure to delight young ones just as it must have done many years ago for our grandparents. Project originally designed for junior high shop students. High quality video avalable from my website CatchMyMemories.com
Ocean Springs, MS (PRWEB) August 13, 2008
The toys that are around today are not of the same caliber as toys of yesteryear. Many of today’s toys focus on trends, neat gadgets and are no more than glorified commercials for cartoons. Carol Lee Cantin has her own ideas of engaging a child’s mind — none of which involve a television.
“We have adorable and safe wood toys,” Cantin says of the products she offers on her site, http://www.EasyWoodenToys.com. “We have chosen wooden toys for boys and girls alike; toys that are fun and educational.”
The toys that are available in the contemporary toy store setting are based upon movie or television tie-ins and have almost no educational merit. Cantin’s store deviates from this notion and supplies families with puzzles, matching games and other wooden toys that will stimulate a child’s imagination.
Cantin also launched http://www.WoodenToysBlog.com in conjunction with http://www.EasyWoodenToys.com. Her Wooden Toys Blog focuses on the benefits of wooden and educational toys, as well as provides information on the safe, non-toxic toys sold on her site.
As Easy Wooden Toys races towards its one year anniversary, Cantin laments on the strength of her products: “I have four children, 15 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren, and nothing pleases me more than seeing their happy faces while they figure out how to put an easy wooden train together.”
Cantin’s message is clear: wooden toys are as exciting and stimulating as their cheap plastic, commercial counterparts; the only difference is that your child will walk away from the experience having used their minds and not having their imagination stifled by preprogrammed sounds and kung-fu grips.
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Find More Wooden Toys Press Releases
Brendan Canning – All the Best Wooden Toys Come from Germany
from Something for All of Us… (Bonus Track Edition)
Price: USD 0.99
View Details about Brendan Canning
Stamford, CT (PRWEB) July 08, 2011
Pure Play Kids, the non-mainstream source for battery-free toys, plaything and products, is excited to launch three new wooden toys, designed in-house and manufactured in the USA. Pure Play Kids Wooden Toy Camera, Wooden Cash Register and Wooden Fire Truck are now available at Pure Play Kids and for selective wholesale. Pure Play Kids new wooden toys join a collection of other wonderful kid-powered toys in providing a safe, creative alternative to mainstream, TV- and movie-based toys.
The Pure Play Kids Wooden Toy Camera puts imagination in focus. Like all Pure Play Kids products, the wooden camera is battery-free, and kids love to take pretend pictures with it. Made of natural contrasting walnut and maple, the Pure Play Kids Wooden Toy Camera has a rotating lens, a selection dial and a depressible wooden button.
The new Wooden Fire Engine Toy from Pure Play Kids features four removable peg people who ride in the cab and can climb the raised ladder to fight fires and rescue tree-bound cats. The bold red fire truck is made in the USA of domestic maple and allows children to create their own movements and sounds, unlike battery-powered toy fire trucks.
Pure Play Kids Wooden Cash Register is sturdily built to include a 10-count abacus, an opening money drawer, credit card swipe and coin slots. A wooden credit card and wooden coins are included, and paper currency can be downloaded at the Purely Playful Blog.
“The Pure Play Kids Wooden Toy Camera is a perfect example of the compelling toy philosophy that drives our business.” Says Tania Grant, CEO. “Pure Play Kids subscribes to the belief that the best toys are 90% kid and 10% toy because that allows imagination and creativity to flourish in children.”
“Pure Play Kids believes in filling unmet needs and providing healthy alternatives in the toy industry. Kids love to play market, and it’s great for their vocabulary, social and mathematical development, but there were no domestically-made, battery-free cash registers available. We decided to make one – the perfect one!” said CEO Tania Grant.
“Pure Play Kids Wooden Fire Truck answers a need we had as parents when our first child was one year old. Before he could talk, our son loved to make fire engine sounds, but the toy fire engines available made the sounds for him. Pure Play Kids fire engine toy puts the child back in control,” said Grant.
Pure Play Kids offers one of the largest selections of battery-free, TV-free, creative playthings in the USA. The company has a sharp focus on creativity, safety and natural materials. The majority of Pure Play Kids products are made in the USA, and the company also offers a selection of the finest European toys.
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Is it just me or are toys not made the way they used to be. I remember when a toy would last you a good 10 years before anything would go wrong with it. You could drop your wooden toy car from the top of a multi-story car park and the most damage it would receive would be a few minor scratches to the paint work. Try dropping a modern toy car from any height at all and it pretty much atomizes. You spend weeks looking for all the bits and pieces that have cracked, smashed and fallen off.
There is an argument to say that toys these days are more technical, they do more stuff and therefore there are more parts to go wrong. I don’t buy this however as some of the more simple toys made these days like Barbie dolls are more fragile than Nicole Richie.
So why are these toys being made to a low standard? Well, as you might expect it comes down to money. Some of the better retailers only sell quality toys, but most are just interested in the bottom line and so have all their toys made in the Far East and using materials that you wouldn’t even want your bin liners to be made from.
The answer? If you’re buying for a girl, hunt around for the best gifts for her on trusted websites, where you know you’ll get quality. You can do the same for boys, but take into account that boys are more aggressive with their toys so they need to be made of tougher stuff.
In recent months there have been some highly publicised reports of toys being recalled due to safety concerns. How can parents and carers be certain that the toys they are providing for their little ones are actually safe?
The recent recall of certain Chinese manufactured toys has sparked fears amongst parents and carers regarding the safety of the toys provided for their children. But these toy recalls represent less than 1% of the toys sold in the UK. In fact, only about 1.5% of all accidents that occur in the home are actually toy related and toy defects are rarely cited as the cause of accident or injury. Most toy related accidents in the home are due to adults tripping over them!
But what can you do to ensure that the toys that you buy for your children are safe? Here are a few basic suggestions that will help you to choose safe toys:
Buy from a respected, reputable toy store: Shops like these will only be stocking toys that have undergone rigorous quality control and safety checks. Many of these toys will have been used and enjoyed safely by generations of happy children. Buying traditional, maybe wooden toys is often a very safe bet.
Look for toy safety markings: The Lion Mark can only be used by manufacturers who have signed up to the BHTA strict code of practice. The CE mark indicates that a toy conforms with the European Toy Safety Directive, but is not really a mark of safety. Age indicators provide you with guidance regarding the suitability of a toy to a particular age group.
Common sense: Inspect the toy yourself. Look out for small parts, sharp edges, flaky paint, poor quality manufacture etc. Don’t go buying rubbish from the market or a car boot sale.
Keep the play area clean and tidy: Not really related to purchasing safe toys but good advice if you want to minimise the risk of accidents.
Children are learning even before they are born. Every event or experience they have is educational and this is why it is important for them to have access to play facilities and toys that will make a positive contribution to their ongoing learning. Play activities contribute towards a child’s educational development in many ways including:
Todays toy shops are full of the latest whizzy electronic toys. Many are advertised as being educational but are really simply attention grabbing. Tests have shown that humans are predisposed to pay attention to rapidly changing events, loud and unusual sounds and the like. Many modern toys exploit these predispositions with loud, noise-making flashing toys that will grab the attention of any youngster but may actually provide limited educational value.
The right educational toys will be stimulating and fun to play with rather than simply being another form of entertainment. And the right educational toy for a baby is obviously a lot different to the educational toy that will stimulate a 10 year old.
Babys and infants need things to look at, to touch, to shake, rattle and roll. Varied colours, varied textures, varied sounds and varied behaviours will all provide immense enjoyment and stimulation to an infant and they will be learning whilst having fun. For example the Baby and Blankie is a beautifully made developmental toy for babies that won the Good Toy Guide Gold Award.
Toddlers in the 1 to 2 year age range are getting to grips with language and associations with the physical world. They like to stack things, build things up and then knock them down again. The baby walker is a well known traditional toy that is loved by toddlers taking their first wobbly steps. Equipped with a cargo of assorted bricks that allow the child to stack and build and knock down whilst encouraging creativity and achievement.
As they grow, toddlers begin to try and emulate the adults around them. They will enjoy dressing up, role play games and adopting personas such as a fireman, postman, nurse or doctor. They will also derive enjoyment from problem solving, puzzle games, building kits and fantasy play.
Many of us will remember having a toy castle when we were children. Building the castle encourages children’s language skills development and creativity as the child creates their own story, imagining their castle occupied by knights and princesses, fighting off dragons and invaders.
From a very early age children will enjoy creating things by drawing, painting, gluing and colouring in. As they grow their drive to create becomes increasingly sophisticated. They will want to have a go at all sorts of creative play, from painting pictures to building a volcano. Luckily there is no shortage of creativity toys from simple sets of crayons and colouring books to bead jewellery and flower gardens.
Don’t be deceived by the hype and advertising of modern, supposedly educational toys. Many have limited educational value and are actually entertainment devices that provide little stimulation or opportunities for learning. There are many traditional toys that make ideal, traditional gifts providing a valuable educational experience for growing children.
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Christmas is just around the corner so pretty soon we’ll have to start thinking about Christmas shopping and gifts. Many children will have prepared lists of electronic gizmos that they are hoping will arrive magically on Christmas morning. Here we present a brief list of ever popular, slightly more traditional gift ideas, only one of which needs batteries:
Rainbow Bike
The Rainbow Brighter Bike is suitable for youngsters aged from around 2½ to 5. Without stabilisers or pedals it relies upon foot propulsion, much like the original bicycles or ‘walking machines‘ from the early 19th century. Children will develop balance and confidence as they freewheel and control their movement and speed with their feet. Progressing on to a pedal powered bicycle is easy once they have mastered the foot propelled Brighter Bike.
Junior Carpenter Set
The Junior Carpenter Set is intended for children from around 8 years old upwards. It consists of scaled down working versions of real tools housed in a tough wooden storage box. A carpentry set is a great learning toy as it can encourage an interest in producing finished products, it can help a child develop forward-thinking and planning skills and it can help them to develop psycho-motor and cognitive skills through handling and manipulating tools and measuring instruments. What’s more, carpentry is good fun and very satisfying.
Magnetic Theatre
Suitable for children aged from 3 to around 8 the Magnetic Theatre provides everything needed to stage and perform 4 classic fairy tales: Cinderella, Three Little Pigs, Red Riding Hood and Pinocchio. Magnetism is used to move the painted wooden characters around the stage which is always fascinating to young children. They will enjoy the and staging their own production for themselves and their friends.
Jumbo Car
Is this a traditional toy? It is certainly a very popular toy for the under 3′s. The Jumbo Car is a soft, padded, comfortable and safe play-car for pretend play-driving. The dashboard presents the toddler with an array of toddler friendly instruments that they find exciting as they start the engine and make the lights flash. The battery powered dashboard can be removed and attached to other play equipment or even taken in the car to keep the little ones amused.
De-Luxe Nativity Scene
Christmas just isn’t Christmas without a nativity scene.
This beautifully made, hand painted wooden nativity scene is suitable for children aged from around 3 years old. It’s a great way for them to learn about the tradition and history of Christmas.
We hope that these ideas provide some inspiration for your Christmas gift buying in 2007. A visit to Mulberry Bush, the Traditional Wooden Toy specialists, will provide you with many more childrens gift ideas and you will find that many of the high quality traditional toys are very economical, unlike many electronic gizmos.
Are wooden toys betters than plastic? In order to answer this question we would need to define ‘better’. I have to admit to being biased towards wood so I’ve been pondering why this is the case.
If we are considering the environment and the ultimate destination for many toys (which is landfill) then wood is clearly the better material. If we are thinking about robustness and the resilience of the material to the treatment that toys receive at the hands of their owners then both materials can perform well, depending upon the toy.
But, since we are considering toys, what we are generally more concerned with are things like how appealing and stimulating the toy is, how the toy feels, behaves and looks and how the toy will contribute to the learning experience of the child. For a toy to score highly in these areas the material used needs to be appropriate and the toy needs to have been designed and manufactured appropriately.
When considering the purchase of a toy for a particular child there are many factors to bear in mind including the age of the child, whether the toy is primarily for indoor or outdoor use, what the child’s interests and aptitudes are and what sort of learning experience will the toy be expected or required to provide. Today there are many expensive, noisy toys which are highly entertaining but don’t actually provide much stimulation and don’t contribute towards creative, imaginative play. It’s very easy to watch a televsion programme but much more demanding and challenging to actually make the television programme. Many toys today are like the television set in that they provide entertainment but don’t actually stimulate creative, imaginative play.
It’s very easy for a child to become swamped with too many toys and too many choices but their imagination may still be under-stimulated due to the nature of the toys available.
Why do I prefer wooden toys? I think that somewhere in the mists of my memory I can recall deriving pleasure and fun from playing with certain traditional wooden toys. I can clearly remember building walls and forts using stackable wooden blocks, before progressing to plastic Lego and metal Mechano. Whilst I derived a lot of fun from my Lego and Mechano it is the wooden building blocks which have more emotional resonance for me. My mini carpentry set was the learning toy that probably seeded my inclination towards practical skills and led to my dismantling everything I laid my hands upon. When your children are all grown up, which of their current playthings do you think they will remember fondly?