Free game at Nico and Zoe

Earthday is over, but Nico & Zoe are still celebrating. Spend $25 and get a free Plan Toys recycling game;spend $50, and get a Recycling Game and a HUGE Plan Toys reusable bag.

Pamela says the game is simple, but really cool. They opened one up and sevden-year-old Zoe had to put it together and play it at least 5 times!

Nico & Zoe offers a selection of handmade toys, European toys and toys made in the U.S.A.. They have a great selection of toys under $10 and toys under $20.

I'm looking for travel toys right now, so I like this:

Zoe's Baby Magnetic Doll Set ($12.00)



I imagine it would keep little girls busy in the car. I also found harmonicas and lacing shapes.

Those bees... and other new toys at KangarooBoo

The bee hive that we reviewed and lots of other cute new toys from Plan are now available at KangarooBoo. Yay!

Bee Hive by Plan Toys ($27.99)



The Eco Recycling Game($27.99) might be nice for Earth Day.



But, what I really want to see are the Planimals. Arielle would love them.

Planimals Australia Series ($32.99)



Sorry, no new reviews this week. Linnea and Arielle have been very sick and it seems that it's my turn. I hope you are all out enjoying the spring weather. I'm hoping to find some nice outdoor toys and eco-friendly toys to review this month.

Buzz Buzz: Plan Toys Bee Hive

This is very exciting. We love Plan Toys. They make reasonably priced, natural baby toys and preschool toys out of old rubber wood trees. Eco-friendly and fun! So when Plan Toys contacted us about reviewing one of the new wooden toys that will be in stores this spring, we practically shouted "Yes, please!".

We reviewed the Plan Toys Bee Hive. This developmental toy consists of a set of six bees with matching bee hive cups and a pair of big wooden tweezers. This simple combination makes a great educational toy (and imaginative toy) for toddlers to kindergartners.


First of all, the bees can be used to learn about colors, sorting, matching and for developing hand-eye coordination. My lovely assistant Arielle will demonstrate:

Pick a bee up with the tweezers...



and drop it in the appropriately colored hive.


You can change the arrangement to make the game a little more complicated.



Can Arielle sort the bees without moving the cups? Yes, she can.


It was more of a challenge for Linnea. She's three, so she's still working out the tweezers. It's nice to see her challenged.


Despite the tweezer challenge, she had a lot of fun lining the bees up and making them "talk" to their friends.


When they were done, they flew off to their hives, and she tucked each in the appropriately colored bed.


Then Arielle has an idea!


She drew flowers. Now Linnea had to make each bee fly out of the hive and to the correct flower.


She did it! Yay!


The toy is absolutely cute, but what I love that this is a learning toy that inspired creativity. The girls looked at it, figured out what it is for, and went beyond that. That is what you expect from an open-ended learning toy.

Next they took out blocks to build their own beehives..... the bees were so happy, but my camera battery died. Maybe next time.

The Plan Toys Bee Hive will be available at Plan toy retailers later this month and on the Plan Toys website.

Thank you, Plan Toys!!!

Tick Tock, a learning clock

Arielle is going to be home-schooled next year. After visiting the local school and hearing from friends who are teachers, I decided that I'd prefer that she spend her early years learning to love learning.

My husband has a degree in elementary education, so I went through my checklist of the things we plan to learn with him. He said that learning to tell time was a big challenge for many of the children he's taught. Many have never seen a clock that is not digital. I thought about it, and almost all the clocks in our home are digital as well.

So, we are very happy to review the Activity Clock from Plan Toys ($32.99)


This rubber wood toy clock comes with a set of nine activity cards (going to school, sleeping, playing, reading, etc.) that fit on top of the clock so children can match the time with their activities.

Arielle was very curious about the clock, and she was eager to learn to tell time. It took a few days, but she soon understood that the long hand at the twelve means o'clock. She's been having a great time setting the clock to 9:00 at bedtime and to 8:00 when she wakes up. After a few days of getting the idea that our activities correspond to the time of day, we were ready to move on.

We matched the clock up with a workbook My Book of Easy Telling Time: Learning about Hours and Half-Hours ($6.95) and will follow that up with My Book of Telling Time: Learning About Minutes ($6.95).

This is a fairly simple workbook that easily guides children into telling time. As Arielle fills out the information in the workbook, she also has the hands-on-experience of setting the play clock to the appropriate time. As she moves the hands clockwise, she gets the idea of how time passes (the hour hand does not move independently, so minutes must pass to make hours). We also talk about the kinds of activities we do at that particular time. Ten o'clock is usually snack time and that is when Sesame Street is on. Four o'clock is when Daddy comes home from work.





Arielle quickly mastered hours and is moving on to half hours. Telling-time works nicely with introducing fractions as well. Talking about half-past lead to a discussion about "what is half?" and a fun afternoon of chopping up snacks and learning about half-way there.

Summer is a great time to review old skills and pick up new ones in preparation for next year. And the Activity Clock is a fun way to introduce an important concept. It is safe, simple and perfect for a four-year-old. Oompa also carries slightly more complex learning clocks from the Polish company, Bajo. They carry both a manual learning clock ($59.99) and a battery-powered option ($69.99) for telling the actual time. These clocks have rotating number balls that can be used for standard time telling, 24 hours (military-style) time telling, learning Roman numerals and for learning fractions. These are nice for children who already understand the basics of telling time, and the battery-powered option could be used as learning-decor for a play room or class room.



Thank you, Oompa.

A few last minute gifts from Petit Baby

Petit Baby sent us three toys to review this week, and I wanted to make sure to get this out in time for holiday shopping.

First up is the Plan Toys Vegetable Set ($17.99)

We love Plan Toys. They provide a great option for safe, environmentally-friendly Wooden toys available at a price that isn't shockingly more expensive than plastic. However, this was the first time that we tried play food toys from Plan. The foods are similar in size to Haba play food, and while they aren't quite as cute, but the felt accents are nice. These are a nice choice if you've bought a play kitchen for Christmas and are looking to stock it with play food on a budget.


We got to test their durability right away as Linnea decided to see how well the vegetables mixed with her cranberry juice. Yuck! While I don't suggest these for toddlers who want to drop things in their juice cups, they did clean up to be good as new and ready for lots of play.

"Eat your carrots, Mom!"









For Arielle's fourth birthday, she received the Haba Sunlight Jewelry Box ($24.99) and a necklace as a special gift from her Daddy who couldn't be there. It looks adorable in her pink princess room. With two little girls who love being pretty, it seems that I always need space for storing hair bows and necklaces. So, I was happy that Petit Baby sent the larger Haba Mia Jewelry House ($31.99).



This very pink and very girly jewelry box. It comes apart into two roomy sections. The top part has a mirror in the lid.



Since it is made of cloth, the jewelry box is manufactured in China in a factory with on-site Haba supervision. All Haba toys and Haba gifts meet European (EN71) and US (ASTM) standards.



Finally, more Djeco toys.
Djeco Color Animals Domino ($16.99)



I just really enjoy the fun, bright illustrations that Djeco uses. Dominoes are a classic picture recognition and number matching game. I remember playing dominoes as a child, although mine were not nearly this cute.

The game starts with each player being given 6 dominoes. The remainder of the dominoes are left in a stack. The first player places a domino on the table. Each player then takes turns putting down a domino by matching 2 identical pictures or 2 identical numbers. If a player can't make a match, she must draw dominoes from the pile until she can. The first player to have no dominoes left is the winner.

Arielle and I played with both with pictures and number dots.




Learning toys and Educational games like dominoes are a great fun way to help preschool-aged children develop pre-reading and early math skill while having fun with mom and dad. Four-year-old, Arielle easily followed the rules and won most of our games.

Don't forget, our readers save 10% off their orders at PetitBaby with code "Sara10" (not valid on sale items).

Our Dollhouse

I've had a few email asking about our doll house.

We have an older version of Plan Toys My First Wooden Doll House ($80.00) with the optional Basement ($33.97). It is nice and roomy and very accessible, although perhaps not the most stylish.

Doll House Furniture by Plan Toys

Our doll house is an older Plan Toys doll house. I got it on eBay a few years ago with a mishmash of doll house furniture. Some was nice and sturdy, some was not. And, even the good sturdy furniture, didn't do so well when tromped on by teenage boys. So, early this summer, the time came for some new doll house furniture.

The Plan furniture is made is made in Thailand of natural, chemical free recycled rubber wood and finished with non-toxic water based dye. It is, of course, scaled to be the perfect size for Plan doll houses and it is tough enough to handle little sisters who like to throw objects and dump things on the floor.

Our doll house gets played with every day. The residents include doll house dolls, but also finger puppets and small stuffed animals. You never know who or what will be home.

Here's Linnea enjoying playing with the nursery furniture while Arielle is at preschool. If you peer carefully, you can see she rearranged the doll house in her signature post-natural disaster style.



The rest of the pictures are of rooms arranged by Arielle, followed by product pictures from KangarooBoo.



Nursery ($18.99) with everything a baby or duck needs.






Bathroom ($18.99) because potties are important.





Kitchen ($18.99) - the toaster and tea kettle are my favorites!






Living Room ($18.99)



All the doors and drawers open, of course. I love the bright colors of the furniture and they mirror the bright colors in the newer Plan doll houses.

Chalet Doll House ($129.99)




Contemporary Doll House ($119.99)

Store Review- Kobold Toys

Kobold Toys is an online shop based in the US. Ana Eiras is the founder of the online store, and her partner Carmina Valdizan owns the brick and mortar shop in Panama. The two mamas are dedicated to bringing you toys that help spark a child's imagination. In addition, they offer gift cards and gift wrap that they import from Germany as part of their Very Busy Very Thoughtful program.

I found their website easy to navigate and full of beautiful toys and gifts. They have a robust collection of Plan Toys, one of my favorite brands. Some of my top picks are:

This Breakfast Menu ($17.50). It is the perfect compliment to your play kitchen collection. Who wouldn't love a little breakfast in bed?

I adore these Assorted Fruits and Vegetables ($19.99). I really like that they split open when cut with the beautiful wooden butter knife. Perfect!

Of course every child would like to push their groceries, books, or kitty around. This Shopping Cart ($55.00) is perfect for your tiny shopper.What I like about Ana and Kobold Toys is that they offer an array of toys, yet each toy is selected for its ability to spark a child's imagination. Ana believes that, "Imagination is perhaps one of the single most important skills humans can have because it is the one skill that will help one sort out new obstacles, solve new issues, and come up with responses to the many challenges life will have for them--as children and later on in life." I couldn't agree more!

Ana lists where each toy is designed and the customer can search for toys designed in a specific country. What I could not find was where each toy was made. Ana has a blog on her stance on MIC toys.

Though Kobold Toys is a new store, Ana was kind enough to send us the Daisy Girls Wooden Magnetic Dress-Up set. Jackson, age 5, played with it for one evening. Then we sent it on to his Pre-K class. The reviews were not mixed. The kids LOVED the dolls. Their teacher said that every child in the room played with it, both boys and girls, and that it was now the favorite center during free time. I was concerned that the magnets would slip but we found that the magnets stayed on very well. I can tell you that they are much easier to use than the cut out type I had as a young girl. This toy is MIC.

Ana has been kind enough to extend to our readers the following promotion code: C2NNF8 This code is good for a 10% discount on your next purchase from Kobold Toys.