Kitchens.... sink and all.

Many of us are considering play kitchens this holiday season, and this can be a tough decision. It's a big chunk of money, and you want to be sure that the kitchen will be both fun to play with and last for years. I asked Carrin of Down to Earth Toys about the difference between the various wooden kitchens.

Kitchens made in the USA - all these sinks have removable stainless steel bowls.

Little Colorado is the least expensive of the brands made in the USA. Little Colorado kitchens are made of pine, but they use MDF for the backs and counter surfaces.

Little Colorado Child's Kitchen ($183.95)



There is an optional door window for an additional five dollars. The measurements are 24"W x 14"D x 34"H, which is pretty standard size. It arrives fully assembled, but allow a few weeks for delivery. The matching refrigerator($161.95)has little shelves on the door. A microwave ($63.95), pantry ($129.95)and washing machine with a turning tub($162.95) are also available.

Elves & Angels kitchens are made of pine with formaldehyde-free plywood for the backs. Elves and Angel kitchens require some assembly. They are finished non-toxic linseed oil.


Julianna's Kitchen ($206.90)



As you can see, the styles are very similar, but Julian's kitchen has more realistic round burners rather than X's. They are painted on. Christina's Kitchen ($185.00) has no shelf, but it is a little wider (28") with space to chop vegetable or mix a cake.

Sylvie's Kitchen ($245.00) is also 28" wide, but has two shelves. The matching Jacob's Icebox ($174.95) has inside shelves, but no door shelves.

Willow Toys kitchens are made of solid pine. They are finished with a natural oil finish. The finish is available in an aromatherapy lavender scent or in unscented. There are two basic styles.


Ivy's Kitchen ($229.00) is more traditional.




Liam's Kitchen ($225.00) has a more contemporary look.



Each style has a matching refrigerator. Devin's Icebox ($179.00) goes with Ivy's kitchen, and the Willow Icebox goes with Liam's Kitchen ($179.00).

Sandy's Kitchen ($185.00) is the basic model with no shelves.

Camden Rose kitchens are beautiful,pine-free and more expensive. They are available at Palumba.

A Simple Hearth ($349.99) is made of cherry with walnut and birch accents.



The shelves inside both the stove and the Simple Fridge ($299.99) are made of metal. There is a cutting board that slides out. The BEEautiful Hearth ($289.99) is simply the same kitchen without the hutch. You can add the hutch ($69.99) later. You can save a little by buying a refrigerator-kitchen combination.

The Gourmet Kitchen ($219.99) has a separate stove and sink. This is good for keeping two children busy.



Camden Rose's more affordable new kitchen, the Camden Kitchen, is made of solid ash wood collected from the many thousands of trees infected by the Emerald Ash Borer. It ships flat and quickly snaps together for assembly. It has a contemporary style and two burners for more counter space.

Camden Kitchen ($249.99)



You could wing a Camden Kitchen, click here for details.


Imagine That Woodshop on Etsy takes custom orders for handmade wooden kitchens, but they are no longer taking orders for this holiday season.

Kitchens that are not made in the USA

Plan Toy kitchens are made in Thailand of environmentally-friendly rubber wood and finished with a non-toxic water-based dye.

Plan Kitchen Center ($269.99)



The stove ($159.98), sink/dishwasher ($199.99) and refrigerator with water/ice dispenser($245.99) are also available as separate pieces in bright colors. We have the washing machine ($199.99). It is OK, but the big rubber band that makes the machine turn tends to slide off. I can easily reach in and slip it back on, but I am also have small hands.

The European kitchens tend to be smaller. The counter height is 19 inches rather than 22.

The Vitamin Kitchen from Nathan at Oompa is both beautiful and colorful -- and expensive! The wooden pieces are modular to allow it to be set up in different ways. Nathan specializes in toys for preschools, and that is what this reminds me of. Because the height is a little smaller, so it is more suitable for children under three. It is made in Poland.



Finally, a German play kitchen. This kitchen is made from alder wood.



Children's Play Kitchen ($350.40)

Choo...choo... A train from Bajo, at Oompa.

Linnea had a wonderful time reviewing this four car train from Oompa. The train consists of four flatbeds and pieces that can be arranged and rearranged to make the engine, a log car, a passenger car, a car carrier (with an included car!), or any imaginative combination your child dreams up.

A Train to Build from Bajo ($54.49)



Bajo toys are crafted in Poland out of alder, maple, beech, birch, walnut, cherry and apple wood. They are very sturdy and last for years. We are huge fans of Bajo.



Linnea took out her other Bajo vehicles (also from Oompa, although out of stock right now).


Arielle wants to play, too.



The train is also available in natural wood ($54.49). There is a larger 5 car train available for $71.99.

A few days later, they built a city using their Haba blocks, stick blockd and a silky, and they let the train run through.





This train is recommended for ages three and up. It's built for real kids and is sturdy enough to pass down. Oompa says the trains encourage imaginative play, cooperative play and independent play. That was definitely happening at my house!

Thank you, Oompa!

More than just counting - with a Bajo abacus

An abacus is a strange toy. We see them and know they are educational, but then they rarely get played with or used for anything except basic counting... 1,2,3,4,5... Often an abacus is bought for a toddler who enjoy sliding the beads around for a while, but then it gets tossed in the toy box and forgotten. This is unfortunate, because an abacus is a great tool for early learning.

Bajo Wooden Bead Abacus ($43.99)

And here is Linnea sliding beads around :0)





Actually, Linnea first told me the colors of the beads. She's a little uncertain about some colors (and when she doesn't know, she says "purple", so we've been doing a lot of color identification to build up her confidence. And then we counted each color 1..2..3.....10! Pretty simple. When she gets older, we'll be able to count all the way to 100. She also got to work on her motor skills when she moved each bead, one at a time, by herself.

But, the abacus can do so much more for Arielle. I've been bringing it out when she does her math. Over the summer, Arielle mastered counting to 100 and learned counting by tens. The abacus is an easy way to illustrate how this works. We counted the individual beads and saw, yes, counting by tens really does work!

This week, Arielle learned about tens and ones. We used the colored beads to represent tens and when we needed to, the top row of plain beads to represent ones. A concept that was confusing on paper made a lot more sense when she could see it and touch it. Here we have two tens and four ones.



Linnea helps out and Arielle showed her how to add. An abacus is great for early adding. When seeing 3+2 on paper gets frustrating, I ask "If you have three blue beads and two green beads, how many beads do you have?" Although Linnea is far closer to "Here are three red beads, can you show me three orange beads?"

I'm thinking the abacus will be especially handy for subtraction and when we start adding numbers greater than ten.



A serious Arielle finishing up her homework.



This abacus is unusual in that it is comprised of two sets of beads. Fifty colored beads on one side and fifty natural wood beads on the other. This really allows the abacus to be used at different skill levels. The rows of red, orange, yellow, green and blue beads. are useful for early adding, keeping track of placement and introducing concepts. The natural beads are more challenging. The visual reinforcement really helps children understand and master new mathematical skills.

Arielle turned five last month, so she is just starting math. For now, I help her use the abacus to visualize problems when she gets frustrated. Soon, I'll say "Try it on the abacus." She will learn to do this herself, and she'll develop independence, problem-solving skills and self-confidence.

This abacus, like all Bajo are made in Poland of locally grown wood and are finished with child-safe, non-toxic lacquers. The abacus is large, the folded dimensions are 10.0 x 10.0 x 4.0 inches. And the 3/4 inch beads are also larger and easy to grasp. Oompa also offers an inexpensive twenty piece abacus ($13.99) perfect for younger children and a more traditional looking 100 piece abacus ($37.99).

Right now, they have a small wooden abacus with one row of five whole beads and one row of ten half beads on sale ($15.99). While not as versatile as the large abacus, I bought one because it is a nice size for teaching toddlers counting and colors, but can be used again later to explain halves and how to add them. And, sometimes, Linnea needs to feel included while Arielle works.



Check out Oompa for a full selection of early learning toys. Happy counting!

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.

Cheekeyes at Oompa

Have you heard Laurie Berkener's song "We are the Dinosaurs"?

That is Arielle and Linnea's absolute favorite song. We listen to it many times a day. They love pretending to be dinosaurs as they sing along, and the first thing they wanted to do when we unpacked the Wooden Animal Dinosaur Set from Cheekeye was to have the dinosaurs march along with the song.

Cheekeye Dinosaurs ($29.99)

Did I say yet that these are just adorably cute? Even Tyrannosaurus rex looks sweet and cuddly.

In addition to Tyrannosaurus rex, the set includes Triceratops (Arielle's favorite), Apatosaurus, Brachiosaurus, and Velociraptor.

The Cheekeyes are made in Sri Lanka and designed in the Netherlands. They are made of hard wood with paint only for the faces and edges. The dinosaur volcano ($16.99) and prehistoric trees ($16.99) are sold separately. They average about five inches in length.

Here are the dinosaurs getting ready to march....


and taking a rest....


and marching again.



Cheekeyes are available in the U.S. exclusively from Oompa. They also make a Farm Set, African Animal Set, Forest Animal Set and Polar Animal Set ($29.99 each), as well as (completely optional ) accessories ($16.99 a set). They would work really nicely with a set of playsilks.

Arielle says more than anything, she hopes Santa brings the "Antarctica Animals". She's been asking every day. If you are reading, Santa, then you know.