Choosing a doll for your child is often a tough decision. How can you know whether your child will appreciate and enjoy a specific doll? Bonikka Dolls are an amazing choice. These soft dolls, rag dolls, and cloth dolls are handmade with gorgeous fabrics. They come in both contemporary and traditional designs that are soft and huggable and safe for babies and toddlers as well as older children. This timeless, classic soft toy is sure to become a favourite for your child or children.
There are many benefits associated with allowing kids, including both boys and girls, to play with dolls, and Bonikka Dolls, with their timeless design, are some of the best options available.
It takes a lot of imagination to play with Bonikka Dolls and other toys. Children get to imagine who their dolls are and what their relationship is to the other dolls and toys around them--as well as to the child themselves. Playing with dolls encourages creative thinking skills and encourages the child to explore imaginatively. Playing with dolls, including Bonikka dolls, offers endless opportunity for creative exploration and a wide range of potential scenarios that can help encourage creative thinking.
Those vital creative thinking skills often help kids in many other areas of their lives. Children who are creative thinkers are adaptive, ready to handle challenges, and often highly engaged with their environments.
As your child plays with their doll, they will have the chance to manipulate the doll, bounce it, and hold it. Soft dolls are great for little learners who are developing their early fine motor skills and for older learners who may want to pose their dolls, put food or other items in their hands, or engage with them in a variety of activities.
Motor skills are incredibly important at all stages of a child's development. A child with strong motor skills is often better able to handle schoolwork down the road as well as being better able to take on a number of tasks, including dressing, eating, and picking up toys after playing.
Playing with dolls is a great way to encourage little ones to develop a strong sense of empathy that may carry them later in life, too. Often, playing with dolls helps encourage children to view concepts and situations through the lens of someone else's experience. Playing with dolls also helps them imagine what future life, including life with kids, might look like. Many of the children playing with dolls today will be parents in the future, and the skills they develop playing with those dolls may help carry them as they parent their children.
In addition, many children will relate and talk to their dolls, sharing their secrets with them and taking comfort in them when they feel sad or lonely. Bonikka dolls, with their soft construction, are ideal for developing empathy and connection.
When children role play with a doll, they have the opportunity to pretend that they are the grown-up and that the doll needs their assistance. Playing with dolls can help encourage children to take on more independent tasks, from setting the table to tying their own shoes. As they "help" their dolls with those tasks, many children will develop a deeper understanding of how to perform the task on their own, which may better prepare them to take on those tasks in everyday life.
Bonikka Dolls are beautiful, soft, timeless toys that can help bring your child immense comfort and encourage a variety of creative play opportunities. With so many options to choose from, you're sure to find a doll that will fit your child's unique needs and personality.
You can go to our Bonikka Doll Range to purchase your next soft doll.
]]>Rag dolls have a wonderful history over centuries of family life and child-rearing. Mothers in the 17th and 18th centuries would save cloth from sewing projects to make into dolls for their children, earning the doll's name. Each doll's body would be stuffed with rags, while the clothing would be made of cloth scraps. Rag doll faces would be stitched into simple happy smiles by the mother or even painted on by the children themselves.
Today, we rarely make rag dolls by hand, but rag dolls still serve an important role in early childhood development.
Rag dolls play an important role from a very early age. A baby's first soft toys become essential to their comfort and sense of safety. When a baby sleeps with a rag doll, it acquires a familiar scent, just like their blanket. The doll can be used to provide familiar comfort when traveling and make a new crib feel like home. Babies are comforted by the presence of a beloved rag doll. When your child is old enough to sleep on their side or stomach, a rag doll becomes a snuggle buddy, and less bulky than a typical stuffed animal.
Rag dolls can be made to be safe for infants and young toddlers by minimising the small or detachable pieces. Rag dolls without hair and with stitched instead of button features are safe to snuggle in the crib.
One of the wonderful things about rag dolls is their simplicity. Young children need simple toys that inspire open-ended play. Young children are learning how to think, imagine, and explore. Their toys can become anything or anyone - provided they are not too specific. This is why young toddlers love toys like blocks and soft dolls that can become anything they want.
Rag dolls typically have simple features, often without even requiring a gender for the doll. This leaves everything to your child's imagination. Rag dolls provide a companion and a prop for many adventures, from their first game of House to riding on the back of their trike as your toddler grows up.
Dolls are an important part of play for both boys and girls. A doll is a pretend person who can play the baby in a game of House, the patient in a game of Doctors Office, or the damsel in a game of Super Heroes. A doll can live in your child's block castle, ride their largest stuffed animal, or become their closest friend to tell their secrets to. Rag dolls, with their friendly yet simple design, let your child write them into every role-play adventure.
Finally, rag dolls can make bedtime easier for children from babies to elementary school. A comforting soft toy helps to ward away nighttime worries, provide something soft to snuggle, and that familiar smell that means "my bed" for small children. A rag doll can stay with your child for years as a favourite bedtime toy, even after they stop being a part of daytime playtime.
Are you looking for the perfect set of toys for your baby, toddler, or preschooler? A rag doll can provide comfort, imagination, and companionship for a young child by letting them write everything except the snuggly softness of the doll itself. You can find a wonderful collection of handmade, organic, and baby-safe rag dolls at Kidzinc. Explore our selection to find the perfect rag doll for your toddler or a young child in your life. Not sure which doll is the right choice? Contact us for pointers from our natural toy enthusiasts.
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By the time children are eleven, they are trying on new ideas and getting into some cool stuff. Being cool is fast becoming a central concern.
Social position and the objective value of ideas weigh more heavily as your eleven-year-old gains knowledge and personal depth.
Giving a great gift to an eleven-year-old can be all over the map; they are each so uniquely different at this phase as their personalities become stronger and more defined in pre-adolescence.
Eleven-year-olds have many different interests and favourite activities, but there is always the coolness factor. If something is cool enough, it transcends individual interests.
And nothing is cooler than applied STEM in new and complex ways. Here are our favourite educational and yet oh-so-cool gift ideas for eleven-year-old girls and boys this year.
Prosthetic hand technology has come leaps and bounds in the last few decades, so much that we can make them as toys!
This cyborg's hand is a really nifty implementation of hydraulic technology, gentle and precise enough to grab an inflatable ball or small-ish toy. No batteries are required.
Cybot the Hydraulic Cyborg Hand is mechanical, actuated by a finger-specific control in the base allowing children to choose precisely how they grip. The innovative design allows you to switch from right to left-handed operation for left-handed children or ambidextrous play.
The hand can be adjusted for any size, making it not just a great gift for your eleven-year-old, but a gift they will be able to play with as they grow into their adult size over the next decade of teen years.
Home chemistry sets are a fun kit project for any child who enjoys mixing and chemical reactions. Every year, some families get their little scientist a new and bigger chemistry set, looking for classic experiments and gear innovations.
Some children also get more deeply interested in science at around eleven as they become interested in world events and think about their future careers. If your middle-schooler is ready to try some chemistry at home, a well-organised chemistry set is a perfect place to start.
What makes the Amazing Chemistry Science Kit great is its construction. This is an all-in-one stand that forms its own organised and decorative workstation.
The kit is less messy, more organised, and more attractive to leave out for the occasional experiment straight out of the homework books. If you want to make home science an everyday type of play, this is a great STEM gift for your scientific eleven-year-old.
What can you do with hydraulics and four simple lever controls? The answer is quite a lot. With the Mega Hydraulic Robot Arm toy, first, your child will build their own Robo-arm from a nifty hydraulic flat kit.
Then they will become The Claw, the dreaded opponent in every grab-toy arcade game. Able to extend, turn, swivel, and pinch, the claw is a super cool example of applied physics and engineering that eleven-year-olds of all interests will love.
From Robo-sipping soda to poking their siblings, just idly playing with the hydraulic arm will teach your eleven-year-old the basics of modern mechanical engineering and what makes the manufacturing sector tick.
Silicone is unbelievably nifty. Have you noticed all the crazy things we can make out of silicone today? This is a conversation that should be occurring in households across the world right now. Just how much can we make out of silicone?
What can and can't silicone replace, like metal baking pans, plastic cooking spoons, and rubber safety mats? Well, we've made something new out of silicone that is just as fascinating: Sensory putty.
Crazy Aaron's Thinking Putty, "Scent" sorry putty is an infinitely fidgitable gloop of perfect scented silicone. This soft, not-quite-plastic material is safe, non-toxic, soft and easy to manipulate but never pulls apart. It also never dries out, wears out, or loses its soft colour in whichever scent-colour combination you choose.
Give your eleven-year-old something to work at when they are nervous or thinking, to enjoy the scent of at their desk, and to contemplate the bizarrely cool results of molecular chemistry.
Toys for kids at this age is something we specialise in, and while we know they are young adults, a remote control STEM toy will make them feel like they are Elon Musk or Marie Curie.
Please also see our full selection of educational toys for 11 year olds.
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Being ten years old is a unique experience for every kid. Ten-year-olds are getting more involved with friends and forming deeper emotions.
Ten-year-olds are also starting to grow out of the childish toys of their earlier years, focusing more on what they can do with a toy or game than having fun with an object's properties alone. And sometimes, it is hard to find the perfect gift idea.
But alas, no more, from solar systems, STEM Toys, board games, or building toys for pre-teens, we have an extensive collection.
If you're looking for the perfect gift for your ten-year-old or a bright growing child in your immediate circle, look for creative and STEM project kits that will be challenging to work on and rewarding to complete. Here are some of our favourite educational and STEM-inspired gifts for ten-year-olds this year.
Not all toys for kids at this age are created equal, and this is why we have put together a selection that kids learn from as they hit those double digits.
Robots should be infinitely rebuildable. One of the most excellent parts of being a robot is swapping out your limbs for wheels or claws or boat-pontoons whenever you want. Most of our favourite educational robots come with cute names.
The crab, row, boat, zombie, turtle, rolly, dog, and beetle are only a few. Still, this post-Wall-E solar robot is called 14 in 1 Educational Solar Robot Kit. It is a DIY kit your child can rebuild into 14 different operative mobile designs.
It walks, rolls, floats, and skitters with an infinitely rebuildable modular body. The robot also doesn't require batteries or a cable; it moves on solar power.
This toy teaches applied mechanical engineering and solar electrical engineering. It inspires your child to rebuild technology to their purpose- an important lesson for modern adults.
Ten-year-olds often experience a boost in fine motor and hand-eye coordination, so they will enjoy the challenge of building their robot and infinitely rebuilding it.
For many children, their earliest expressions of mathematical skill come out through art. Dream catchers are a classic example of aesthetic geometric design using the tension physics of string around a frame.
Ten-year-olds often dive into creative projects and skills as a way to express their developing logical and emotional depth. Dream catchers make excellent projects that become wall-worthy art and early expressions of your child's artistic talent.
The Dream Catcher Craft Kit is a work of string art that teaches children how to make woven patterns and then craft their own images in the string. This is an early hands-on way to practice geometric design and can be infinitely recreated once the skill is learned by buying or building new frames and skeins of yarn.
Ten-year-olds often go through a phase where they absolutely must have a pet, and robot pets are an excellent stand-in.
We love the DIY Robotic Hedgehog Kit. It's a little mechanical hedgehog that walks, curls up, and plays with a child like a pet. But it's also a robot they have built from pieces and can rebuild to alter or repair when they want to. This hedgehog is more than a pet; it doesn't make a mess and can be rebuilt for fun.
Give your ten-year-old the pet they've been asking for in the form of a fantastic STEM project that friends and siblings won't be able to resist. For ten-year-olds, the feeling of accomplishment from building their own pet is rivalled only by the glow of social approval for having a cool robot pet.
Is your ten-year-old always seeking new experiments? Little Scientists and engineers have the most fun with experiment science kits like the Physics and Engineering STEM Kit by Clementoni.
This kit includes experiment kits for physics, chemistry, and engineering in action. Make science visible with tons of kits that explore science in interesting new ways. Not to mention, the kit supplies become an awesome mad scientist kit to be replenished and repurposed for years of creative fun.
This is a great gift for ten-year-olds who like cool supplies and nifty experiments you can see. Big kits also make a good gift for siblings who may have interests in different areas of STEM so everyone can find a cool experiment to try.
Crystal growing is a beautiful and unforgettable part of childhood and has been since the 1970s; the first crystal growing kits became popular in toy stores. It's a fascinating science project to do at school or at home, and it's the perfect blend of science and art for more creative ten-year-olds.
The Unicorn Crystal Growing Kit grows your crystals in a gem-cut terrarium with individual jars for different crystal growing as well. Two tiny toy unicorns gallop around the crystals as they grow, crystals that match the unicorns in colour.
This is an excellent example of STEM applied in an artistic project kit. Your ten-year-old will explore the fascinating chemistry of crystal growing while also growing their own glimmering room decorations that they can feel proud of each time they see crystals on their shelf or desk.
Creative STEM projects and kits make excellent gifts for ten-year-olds because children like to feel challenged and accomplished.
From building robots to weaving dream catchers, give your child the gift of creative applied STEM learning. We love these kits because they're not just educational; they create a final product a child will be proud to keep for years as decorations and rebuildable projects.
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Nine-year-olds are bright, curious, and starting to develop inner depth. Children at this age are often more thoughtful and have started considering things they've never thought about before.
Nine-year-olds often become more social and friend time becomes very important. Many become distinctly more or less interested in athletics, and high-quality board games are a must for group and solo play.
What do you give a nine-year-old who is clearly experiencing and processing all sorts of new thoughts?
Some of the best gift ideas for a fourth-grader are STEM toys, active play toys, and games that inspire their creative application of learned skills.
Nine is an important year for cognitive and emotional development together, so consider gifts that encourage your fourth grader to take on challenges on their own with hands-on activities.
If your child has ever wanted to build a robot, Stanley is an excellent place to start. This robot doesn't come pre-built; Stanley, the multi-purpose keypad robot, comes in 182 pieces that will teach your nine-year-old early robotics and mechanical engineering as they build their own electric remote-control toy.
Why 3 in 1? Once built, Stanley has three modes, a nerf gun, a doodle marker, and a sweeper. This is a fantastic robot kit for kids.
Gift your nine-year-old with a friend they can build themselves. The robot will draw for them, clean up (a little bit), and be remote-controlled as a sneaky unit in a house-wide nerf battle. Older kids love this one too! A brilliant STEM learning toy.
Chemistry is fun for kids who love hands-on play. There are so many ways to see chemistry in action.
With the My First Chemistry Set by Clementoni, your nine-year-old can test, mix, and experiment with both chemical and household products. They can watch chemistry cause things to change colours, bubble and fizz, dissolve and condense, mix and separate, and create multi-step reaction chains.
This is the perfect gift if you plan to explore with your nine-year-old. The kit comes with a few chemical substances like copper, tartaric acid, and litmus paper, along with a wide range of test tubes with caps, stir sticks, tweezers, droppers, and safety goggles.
Encourage your child to get into the physical sciences early with the fun of Chemistry.
This science kit helps children learn about chemistry and is sustainable for 8 years and older age groups.
Is your nine-year-old a super sleuth? Some kids love detective and crime stories. They crawl around with their first magnifying glass. A classic Kidzlabs Fingerprint Kit
They love both classic and modern detective novels, from Sherlock Holmes and Nancy Drew to the latest crime-stopping cartoon heroes. Kids who are serious about catching criminals will dive into forensic science with the KidsLabs Fingerprint Kit.
Most kids wonder how fingerprints work, pay attention to the dusting, and think about catching criminals with those special marks.
This could be the gift of the season for a nine-year-old who has been soaking up detective strategies and is ready to fingerprint the family. Get ready to have your hands inked and your surfaces lightly dusted by an extremely curious justice-driven grade-schooler.
Kids and adults will both love this one, teaching kids that no two fingerprints are the same.
Of course, nine-year-olds are also growing fast physically as well as mentally. Nine is a common year for growth spurts and a need to burn off energy between schoolwork and science projects.
Door pong is a great indoor solution to a need for sports, activities, and a way for siblings to play together.
The door pong game clamps to the centre of a doorway and attaches to a ping-pong ball by a string.
You control how long the string is and, therefore, how far the ball can swing (and how tall the players have to be). Your nine-year-old will appreciate a way to jump, play, and practice their gross motor skills as they grow new inches in every direction.
A fast-paced, enjoyable toy for kids when they are stuck indoors.
Finding the perfect gift for your nine-year-old relies on balancing their interests with games and toys that will challenge them at their current level.
Encourage your nine-year-old to dive into STEM skills, use their existing knowledge, and practice all-new skills they discover along the way.
Whether learning new math skills, science skills, or about the human body, it should be fun! At KidzInc, we sell child development packaged as fun.
Our collections of Pre-Teen Educational Toys
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Every holiday season, relatives see just how big the youngest family members have grown.
Small children who were toddlers just a year or two previous are now bold young kindergarteners this year.
Five-year-olds are ready to put on their big-kid hats and face the world with a whole new attitude of exploration, science, and play. Where younger children focused mainly on learning how their hands worked and then how to take charge of a playroom, five-year-olds are starting to see the big picture for the first time.
It's hard to choose the wrong gift for a five-year-old, they are enthusiastic about everything, and anything is a new learning experience.
However, this holiday season, the best gifts for a kindergartener are toys they can build and rebuild into new challenges all year long. STEM learning, puzzle games, and games they can play with new friends made at school will make your gift a playtime favourite.
Gears are infinitely interesting, but gears with shafts, belts, chains, and tall multi-gear structures are even more incredible.
Five-year-olds are ready to master 3D puzzles and explore the STEM possibilities of early simple machines.
Levers and latches are a great place to start, but gear shafts are really what get the mental gears turning. Inspire your little engineer to build their first complex machine with the Gerorello Tech Gears set by Quercetti.
This incredible machine-maker incorporates all sorts of moving pieces that all move together when combined with the Quercetti universal joint piece that transmits spin over distances and to new parts of the machine.
When we played snakes (or chutes) and ladders as children, of course, we imagined a 3D world where the pieces could really climb or slide down.
Of course, we acted out the climbing and the sliding, complete with sound effects. Well, now someone has finally built the game we all imagined: a 3D snakes and ladders game with multiple levels of stacked game boards.
The Multi-Level Snakes and Ladders game will not only fascinate your five-year-old, but it will also become a centrepiece of your holiday celebrations. Everyone from all generations will take a shot at this reinvention of a classic favourite board game.
What do you get when you combine four wooden hens, a spinner, and 26 barnyard tokens? It's a game called Bye Bye Mr Fox that kids love.
Blue Orange Games brings us a cooperative board game for five-year-olds and older where the goal is to rescue the hen's eggs before Mr Fox gets a chance to steal one.
Each spin of the spinner determines who gets to move. Getting three eggs into each player-hen's nest is what it takes to win. This game teaches cooperation, math, problem-solving skills and fine motor control with an adorable wooden barnyard aesthetic.
Of course, if you want to be the coolest gift-giver in your five-year-old's holiday, there's always the marble run.
There's no explanation why we love marble runs so much, except that humans of all ages can't resist watching marbles spin, track, jump, and roll down track after creative track.
Babies love marble runs from an early age, but they are old enough for something truly complex and life-sized at five. A wonderful building toy for developing fine motor skills and to teach your kids cause and effect. Young children love this one.
The Quadrilla Marble Run: Race to the Finish is a block set, a marble track set, and a city-building kit all in one.
Five-year-olds get their first collection of marbles (now being old enough for pretty glass orbs). The 58 pieces set includes an incredible spinner twist, riser blocks, track pieces, marble shutters, and 30 individual marbles to send down the run.
In addition to endless hours of fun, your five-year-old will also be practising fine and gross motor control, hand-eye coordination, and an early exploration into gravity, velocity, and architectural STEM learning.
This holiday season could be the best possible experience for your five-year-old with engaging, educational games that will keep them interested and learning for months after the gift is given.
These great games and toys for kids are inspired to create bright childhood experiences and learning opportunities with every new play session.
Kids of all ages learn through play, and when kids learn, we all win. Our full collection of educational toys for 5 year olds.
]]>What is the perfect gift for a unique and explorative eight-year-old? We have put this selection together as we know age recommendations are useful for kids and adults alike.
No two 8-year-olds are the same. By the time your child turns eight, they are rapidly becoming their own individual person with strong opinions and an ever-changing sense of style.
They take on big-kid school, learn interesting real-world subjects, and form their first opinions about the world.
Every day, they try on new thoughts and ideas the same way they try on costumes. Anything they try might be their career in the future, which is why now is the perfect time for inspirational STEM games and science kits.
Eight-year-olds love interesting new board games that use facts they learned in school.
They love handicrafts that turn into something useful or beautiful and experiments where they get hands-on with science. This year, introduce your unique explorer to one of these tremendous inventive and STEM toys inspired games and activity kits.
This gift guide includes many award winners and includes some brilliant toys for kids.
Have you ever thought, "If I designed the planet, I would have..."? Well, now you can. PLANET is an award-winning strategy "board" game that starts with each player holding a magnetic-sided decagon representing your planet.
As you play the game, each player builds their own planet by choosing magnetic "continent" tiles that define each side of their decagon planet. Win animal cards and complete natural habitat quests to construct the most bio-diverse and balanced world and win the game.
This is a game eight-year-olds will play for months of unique play sessions alone, with siblings and friends, and with interested adults.
The game pieces are beautiful and indeed evoke the feeling of creating natural biomes and ecosystems through gameplay. Eight-year-olds who like science, nature, space, and animals will all delight in building their own planets again and again.
A great addition to family game night, and teaches kids about science, space, nature and critical thinking skills.
Children who love robotics, building, and electronics will love the opportunity to build their own Tobbie robot.
The set includes 70 pieces and instructions to guide children 8 and up to put it all together. Not only will the initial construction be an incredible dive into STEM engineering skills, but they have also built themselves a friend.
Tobbie's computer chip guides a robot with emotional complexity and builds a personality before your child's eyes.
Give your eight-year-old an early experience with AI in action and put the power of science in their talented little hands. Many children will love their robot pet so much they'll want to build another one.
Tobbie can inspire any child to see the potential in science and hands-on engineering.
Some children build like they were born to it. They fit every gear and shaft and lego plate they can find into new constructions every day.
If your eight year old loves legos and tinker toys, give them a tech-level upgrade with the 12-in-1 Solar and Hydraulic Construction Kit. The title is a mouthful, but the kit speaks for itself.
This kit can build countless walking and articulating robots that move on their own using solar power and tiny hydraulic pistons.
Give your eight-year-old a taste of mechanical engineering and green energy innovation.
They can build a monkey, t-rex, bird, car, elephant, crocodile, and many more creative mechanical designs using delightful sets of gears, levers, and hydraulic controls. This is a gift that will be built and rebuilt all year long.
Every eight-year-old loves kitchen science. There's something extraordinary about combining household stuff into cool science projects, from dying eggs with food colouring to baking soda volcanos.
The Deluxe Kitchen Science Kit is an excellent collection of supplies and guidebooks to do all sorts of kitchen-safe experiments, some of them even useful or tasty. STEAM powered kids is an entire line of toys based on Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics.
This kit includes making rock candy, getting power from oranges, putting bubbles into prisms, creating a mini weather system, using chemistry to shoot nerf rockets, and more.
The kit contains over 30 unique experiments and an easy to learn guidebook that can be followed with renewed supplies to repeat the show for friends and siblings.
Eight-year-olds love hands-on gifts they can learn from and show off their learning.
STEM games can not only entertain your third-grader but also inspire their future class and career choices as they discover what real-world skills are the most fun and interesting. This holiday season is an opportunity to introduce your little explorer to a new glimpse at applied science and technology for fun.
Our full collection of educational toys for 8 year olds
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Seven-year-olds are at that brilliant age where they are ready to make their mark on the world around them. Seven-year-olds love to decorate their rooms with things they've made and chosen.
They love craft projects that make something that lasts, not just something that's pretty. Seven-year-olds are getting interested in world topics and future career ideas.
They're dreaming of becoming teachers, artists, veterinarians, scientists, and dinosaur wranglers. Their fine motor skills are advanced, and brain teasers grab their interest, and it is not hard to build a gift guide for them if you are us 😃.
What is the best kind of gift for a first grader this holiday season or a special birthday?
Give them something educational and hands-on that will last. Craft kits are a big hit at seven because there's so much to do, and the results can be used as toys and decorations after they're finished.
They also love board games and puzzles that can be replayed to reach new challenges and games that can be played with new friends from school. Here are our top picks for great seven-year-old gift ideas this year!
Creative seven-year-olds love to decorate their rooms with their own creations. Paint a chalkboard wall and watch the murals unfold.
Build flat-pack furniture together, and they'll say "I built that" every time a friend gets a tour of their room. This is why we love the Room Lights Origami craft set by 4M for children who are brilliant and creative seven-year-olds this year.
First, kids can tackle the fun of learning how to make all sorts of pretty origami shapes.
These include flowers, hearts, strawberries, and butterflies. It comes with paper and instructions for each shape but, even better is what happens next.
Then you take the string of lights and pop an origami piece onto each little bulb, making a glowing paper lantern that your seven-year-old folded themselves!
Your little one will love this gift and be proud of their work every time they see their twinkling bedroom lights.
Qwirkle is a fun game young children can play alone or together in groups. The tiles are painted wood, and the rules are simple.
Each tile is painted black with a colourful shape. There are five colours and five shape types.
Children must match the shape or colour of the already-laid tile they select to place a new tile.
This pattern-building game results in endless combinations of colour and shape based rows that look like a geometric cross-word puzzle as the game progresses.
Children can play solo, with an adult, or with a group of friends, learning cognitive thinking, problem-solving, cooperation, and applied mathematics.
This board game is an excellent addition to the family game cupboard or can live on your seven-year-old's own toy shelf to be pulled down every time there are fifteen minutes to spare and some new patterns to match.
This is an amazing, interactive game for kids. Better than video games, in our opinion
What a building kit! Rover is a hybrid solar-powered robot that can also run on batteries that kids love.
When the sun shines, Rover starts to roll, showing that he is converting the sun's energy into electricity that a robot can use.
But wait, there's more. Rover isn't a prefabricated plastic toy that beeps and moves a little; it's a robot your seven-year-old can build for themselves.
This solar toy uses basic instructions to inspire early STEM learning and empower children to realize their own technological capabilities.
Put the power of gears, wheels, and the sun's energy into the hands of your seven-year-old as they learn that they, too, can be engineers and scientists with the right tools and a little hard work.
Science kits are great, but building your own robot does not get much better!
Coggy is one of the best portable non-board games for young children this year. Coggy is a click-together magnetic game of gears and puzzles.
Each piece fits to the others uniquely and can fold into new shapes and puzzle machines.
The cards that come with Coggy include challenge after challenge, ranging from easy to crazy-difficult, to inspire cognitive development every time your seven-year-old plays.
This game is designed to teach math, geometry, spatial learning, problem-solving and makes a great fidget-toy set to boot.
Seven-year-olds are wonderful to share a holiday with because they will dive into any gift that involves crafting, building, puzzle-solving, and taking charge of their environment.
Give your seven-year-old or the brilliant child in your near family a gift they can play with (and learn from!) all year long.
If you are looking for our full list of gifts or the perfect gift for 7-year-olds, you can head here.
If you have more than one age group to search for and want STEM toys or educational toys for kids, then you can head here or here.
]]>What do you gift a six-year-old who loves all their toys from when they were five? Choosing the right gift can be challenging with the holidays coming up (or perhaps a birthday right around the corner).
Not because six-year-olds are hard to shop for (they're not!) but because six-year-olds love everything and have the potential to benefit from so many toys and games.
Whether you are looking for a building set, board game, or just a stocking stuffer, you will find it here, and they have all been independently selected by us to help teach kids fine motor skills, math skills, creativity, and so much more.
Instead of the usual cartoon-themed action figure, the perfect gift for an active, brilliant little six-year-old is a game that challenges them to think, explore, create, and be proud of what they've accomplished.
Six-year-olds are ready to do, learn, and create. They are prepared to put their art on the walls, make their own toys, and prove how smart they are again and again with puzzle games and higher scores.
Suppose you want to gift your six-year-old a present that will both entertain them all year and provide valuable early STEM benefits, fine motor, and critical thinking skills.
In that case, we have a few favourite toys and games that are a delight to see your first-grader master through creative play.
Our toys all have been selected for their educational benefit, and we have a large number of STEM Toys.
The Genius Square logic puzzle game is, well, genius. It's also designed to teach children problem-solving and geometric math skills early in their academic careers. The game starts as a 6x6 grid with letter and number coordinates.
Dice are rolled to determine where the seven blocker pieces are placed. Then each player (with their own grid) tries to figure out how to use their Tetris-like pieces to fill the square without hitting the blockers.
This geometric puzzle can be played many times with over 62,000 possible combinations for the blocker pieces alone.
If you want to give a gift that will inspire your little mathematician or future architect, the Genus Square game is a perfect game you can play together, or your first-grader can play solo for hours of fun.
Six-year-olds love to create and not just to knock it down again. Six-year-olds want to see real results from their work and play with toys they make themselves or hang their new art on the walls.
They also love to learn new skills and to practice fine motor control by crafting with their hands.
The Easy-to-Do Crochet kit is a great beginner craft project for little hands with safe, brightly coloured materials and a step by step guide.
Children can get started practising making flowers, then graduate to headbands, necklaces, pot holders, coozies, and much, much more!
If you want a wonderful gift for a creative and artistic six-year-old, the Crochet crafting kit is a fantastic gift that creates permanent projects - or you can unravel and start all over.
Making noise and playing with physics go hand-in-hand with the Zig & Go music set by Djeco. This fun 52 piece set is a track with multiple rollers and noisemakers.
There are metal marbles that pass a track of chimes, a hammer-car that hits a gong, and a bell car that dings as it rolls. There are dominos to knock over and drum sticks to drop.
If your six-year-old loves Home Alone, they'll adore this Rube Goldberg style music-making kit, and so will you.
Zig & Go offers hours of play, but, more importantly, it introduces STEM style science experimentation and physics play long before your little one's first science lab.
This is a fantastic multi-piece musical playset for a six-year-old who loves to set up experiments with household items.
Is your little one too energetic for indoor play? Some children love to move around, run, jump, bat, climb, and occasionally tumble over the household furniture.
They will crawl under, jump over, and knock over just about anything. You can harness that energy into hours of hand-eye coordination and gross motor development with a simple game called Door Pong.
Door pong hooks to the centre of a doorframe with a light, bouncy ping-pong ball on a string and two paddles.
The best part is that the game is just a string, and you can set the string length. Easy to put up and easy to put down.
Set up your little one to bat at the string from a safe location. The ball always comes back, and, even better, this is a great toy for siblings to share.
A perfect toy gift for kids stuck indoors and great for rainy days.
Does your six-year-old love paper crafts and making beautiful art? The Flower Garden paper multi-craft set is an amazing arts & crafts gift for a six-year-old this year because it has so many projects to do that all turn out beautifully.
This kit includes paper flowers, watercolour paints, foam stamps, and pop-up paper crafts, all themed in an artistic garden style.
This gift teaches fine motor control and hand-eye coordination and inspires creative cognitive development for a first-grader who can't get enough construction papercrafts.
Don't be surprised if your little one starts making crafts in ways other than how they were intended. That's just a sign of their confidence and creativity growing.
If you are looking for gift guides or toys for 6-year olds that kids will love, then any of the above will be an excellent gift for kids. Our you can see the full collection of educational toys for 6 year olds here
]]>There are few things more delightful than holidays with a four-year-old. There's nothing a four-year-old loves more than fun new games and family to play them with. Children at this age are challenging their brains with everything they can find. Four-year-olds love early STEM in the form of science projects, building, and games that involve increasing levels of early math, science. Some are creative and make art out of everything they play with, from finger paint to game tiles. Some are constructive and start building machines.
The best gifts for a four-year-old are toys and games that ignite their cognitive learning for both solo pretend play and playing with others. Games designed around early STEM and creative exploration will be a hit not just with the toddler in your life but will also be fun for older family members to play along with, which is what your bright, interactive four-year-old wants most of all.
Geometric shapes are fun to make pictures with, as every kid learns the first time they have a set of geometric tiles. Djeco introduces a fun and neat new way for young children to play with geometry with the Geoform Wooden Magnetic Set. Don't let the name fool you.
This set is 42 colourful geometric shapes like squares, rectangles, triangles, half-circles and ring pieces in various sizes. The pieces are kept in a cute wooden portfolio and a magnetic canvas for 2D geometric creations. Your toddler can draw people, animals, buildings, and anything their imagination can discover out of simple shapes inspiring cognitive, creative, and early mathematical exploration.
It's never too early to learn to program! The Coko Crocodile robot toy is the baby's first program writer. This crocodile has a long back that can take up to 8 tile directions and 15 direction tiles to choose from. Each tile has an arrow telling the crocodile to go straight, turn, stop, spin, or make a sound. It will also respond to its magnetic "food" piece making this a fun robotic pet for your little computer genius in the making.
Coko introduces four-year-olds to the concept of taking control through a sequence of commands. Like Uno only with robots, children set up a sequence of commands and hit the button on the crocodile's head to see it in action.
In the Bee Genius board game, the child helps a queen bee to construct a new honeycomb for the hive. The worker bees are placed with a dice roll, and children can put their 11 coloured honeycomb pieces without spaces around the worker bees. This game has over 45,000 possible puzzle combinations for endless math and geometry fun. This non-competitive game was designed to help children develop early logic, math, and thinking skills and build self-confidence in their own abilities to solve puzzles with help and on their own.
Feed the Woozle is a silly, cooperative game that kids can play together. The Woozle is a stand-up cartoon with a wide hungry mouth. How many snacks can your four-year-old "feed" the woozle with their scoop without dropping the snacks doing silly actions?
This game incorporates counting, following directions, fine motor skills, balance, language development, hand-eye coordination, and cooperative play. It combines it all with silly actions that will have your four-year-old giggling every time you play. The game itself by Peaceable Kingdom won several children's game awards for learning toy play and parents' choice.
Four-year-olds love to show off how well they can count and do simple mathematical concepts, and the best way to do math as a pre-schooler is with pictures! The 1, 2, 3 Domino Math Game is an excellent way for four-year-olds to play alone, with each other, and with family to practice their early math and problem-solving skills. Colourful tiles feature numbers and pictures of birds, bugs, candies, and other little items in groups that match the numbers.
This is a game that will become a staple in your board game cupboard for years and makes a great holiday gift that your four-year-old kids will love to play once or twice with every relative who comes to visit.
Four-year-olds don't just love unwrapping the paper; they are old enough to love every great new game to play. If you're looking for gift ideas for a bright young pre-schooler in your life, educational games that inspire fine motor control and problem-solving will keep your four-year-old not just entertained but sharpening their minds with every replay.
We love finding educational toys for kids; since 2009, our mission at KidzInc has been to develop young minds. See the full collection of educational toys for four year olds
]]>Three-year-olds are amazing to play and talk with. They are mastering language in their baby way and looking to explore their universe more completely. They are ready to take on the world and explore every corner from the biggest cloud to the tiniest bug past the terrible twos. Three-year-olds want to know why and how and to do it themselves. Your three-year-old is a bundle of energy and curiosity, and giving them gifts is just another opportunity to watch them discover something new.
We have tons of toy gift ideas for three year old because they are so ready to learn. Educational toys are the best kind of gift for any little explorer to help them dig deeper into the world around them in a safe yet inspiring way. Gift a three-year-old in your life with toys that empower them to build, explore, and find out for themselves through open-ended play.
What's more fun than a barrel of monkeys? A barrel of bendy monkeys with suction-cup arms! Squigz set includes is a 36-piece bucket of creative fun. Each Squigz is a colourful silicone disc and multiple bendy suction-cup arms that stick together, pop apart and hang from any smooth, clean surface. Stack them, make them dance, and pose them on the bathroom mirror. Even the centres are suction cups!
Share your own Squigz memories with a new generation or discover the fun with your three-year-old. Every bucket comes with
Each colour has its own size, number of arms and arm length to make your three-year-old's constructions even more fun. Squiz teaches toddlers fine motor control and inspires construction, creativity, critical thinking, and fine hand-eye coordination to make complex shapes and stick them to smooth surfaces.
Genuinely, this is the kind of brain-teaser toy that everyone winds up playing with and sticking in unexpected places over a shared family holiday.
Speaking of toys that take over the holiday, the Balance Teeter Popper is one of those sensory toys that toddlers love, and older kids have to try out while the babies are napping. The Balance Teeter Popper is a scoop-seat with rising handles on either side. Essentially, it's a teeter and balance toy. You can sit on it and wiggle or stand on it and 'surf', But the real fun is the poppers.
The bottom of the Teeter Popper is covered in suction cups that stick, pull, and let go with a pop as you teeter. This toy teaches balance and sensory feedback, as every degree of wobble comes with a pop on one side and a stick on the other. Children learn stability, strength, and gross motor control to start. Soon they will be strategizing ways to sit, stand, spin, and 'walk' the board. The only age limit is the size of the board.
Three-year-olds are often just learning to spell and love puzzles that are also physical games. The coolest "board" game for toddlers today is the Magicube Word Building puzzle. These letter building blocks stack with magnets to form an architectural crossword puzzle. The game comes with 16 blocks and 63 tiles that can change the faces of your blocks. Inspire your three-year-old's cognitive, fine motor, and gross motor skills as they learn to build their first spelt words.
The word-building game is a fantastic way to encourage three-year-olds to make spelling part of their everyday play. Early reading, spontaneous spelling, and self-challenging become the foundation for academic success.
Sensory play is still essential for three-year-olds, but they require more complexity than younger toddlers. This makes the Dimple Pops Deluxe Board a great sensory toy to inspire imaginative play. Fine motor control and hand-eye coordination are only the beginning of what toddlers can learn from a Dimple board.
Dimple makes a line of products increasing in complexity, each featuring double-sided colourful dimples of various sizes and colours. Young children learn colours from sensory play, while older children will likely imagine surprising and creative games, unlocking their abstract thought with a larger multi-button Dimple board.
Let's not forget that three-year-olds are explorers at heart, and they love to pretend play. They love role-playing stories about dinosaurs, bugs, unusual plants, and outer space. It's great to empower your toddler to boldly explore the world around them, from the sky above to the carpet fibres below. The Kidnoculars are designed to give toddlers with early fine motor skills an easy way to look far away. These adjustment-free, extra-large binoculars can be fitted easily for an adventurous three-year-old to look at anything far away.
Binoculars can look at the night sky, at distant trees, across the yard, at cool stuff on car rides, and all the way into the kitchen. These are durable plastic and rubber material designed to be comfortable, easy to use, and immediately inspire an adventure as soon as they are unwrapped.
At KidzInc, we are dedicated to educational and STEM toys that develop their minds and natural skills and stock a wide range of three-year-old educational toys.
]]>Your two-year-old has been focusing on learning about the world and is getting the hang of things. They can crawl, walk, reach, grab, and throw with proficiency. Two-year-olds are also getting very investigative.
The couch-diving and plug-pulling phase is really a desire to explore the spaces and STEM concepts around them.
For a two-year-old, the best kind of gift is one that helps them learn new fine motor and mental skills.
Two-year-olds want to practice thinking and doing for themselves. They also become more confident when they are encouraged to explore with discovery and educational toys.
Here are some of our favourite development inspiring gift toys for a 2-year old this holiday season.
Nothing teaches two-year-olds about gravity, quite like the marble path.
The Rolly Spiral Tower is your two-year-old's first marble tower, sized and designed to be toddle-safe. This toy teaches layers of sensory play and early STEM learning.
The tower is made of easy stacking disks, each a different colour of the rainbow that stacks together into a marble track almost as tall as your toddler.
The marbles are clear, half-clear, and opaque plastic balls full of rattling sprinkles that are fun to shake, roll, and send down the tower.
Building a tower teaches fine motor and gross motor skills, controlling the marbles practices hand-eye coordination for two-year-olds, and the physics game inspires cognitive learning and first lessons on velocity and gravity working together.
The train of animals has been a classic gift for toddlers for over a century.
Carved wooden trains and circus animals have been teaching babies the names of animals and how pull-tracks work for almost as long as there have been trains.
The My First Animal Train is a delightfully modern take on the original peg and hook train sets.
Gift your two-year-old with this delightful 25-piece magnetic set of colourful train pieces and animals.
This toy is a fun introduction to the Smartmax magnetic building toys that will inspire STEM learning in young children year after year.
The My First Animal Train is an excellent choice if looking for a classic toy redesigned as a cognitive development puzzle. Outstanding for developing fine motor skills and pretend play.
The Topanifarm Stacking Blocks are a fun twist on classic stacking blocks for two-year-olds who love to stack. Every block is a house for a different little toy animal.
The biggest block is a barn for the boar, then a dog house for the puppy, a house with a painted tree swing for the pig, an ivy-covered cat house for the kitty, a window house for the bunny, and a cute tiny hutch for the hen at the top.
Two-year-olds who enjoy playing with animals and having toy pets will love building special stacks of homes for their little Topanifarm animals.
Stacking the Topanifarm home blocks teaches fine and gross motor skills, and placing each animal will help children practice precise hand-eye coordination.
These toys will inspire hours of imaginary play and creative cognitive development. For a fun gift that will turn into endless animal stories, these little houses and animals are a great gift idea.
They are the most beautiful building blocks you will find and perfect for little hands from 18 months. We used these with our daughter ourselves.
Two-year-olds often love to open things. They want to explore, unfasten, unravel, unplug and access everything. It's a natural part of their exploratory and scientific nature.
The Lockbasic Wooden Puzzle is a fun way to explore cognitive learning, hand-eye coordination, and fine motor control as children explore locks and latches.
Each of the three puzzle compartments has a different kind of latch and locking mechanism. One has a hook latch, one a turning key lock, and one has a simple bar latch.
Each compartment opens to a fun peek-a-boo animal that children can practice opening and closing to see.
This game not only teaches fine control and problem-solving, but it also teaches an important lesson about how to get through doors in places like parks and restaurants.
Finding the perfect gift for a two-year-old in your life, whether you are a proud parent or a close family member or friend, is best when the toy inspires joy and learning.
The Lockbasic is a magical wooden toy and brilliant at building matching skills. These toys are sensory, encourage exploration, inspire STEM cognitive learning, and help toddlers master motor control.
All of the above toys are easy storage, and kids love them! They encourage imaginative play and developing skills at this critical learning age. If you are looking for our full collection of educational toys for two year olds, head here.
]]>One-year-olds are interested in everything. They will grab, turn, spin, drop, throw, taste, and tumble over anything they can get their hands on. This isn't chaos; it's science! What does a scientist do with a brand new type of rock? They weigh it, spin it, balance it, polish it, taste it, and find other ways to test its properties. One-year-olds are testing the properties of everything in the world; it's all brand new. This is especially true when it comes to toys and new gifts.
As the gift-giving season approaches, the question looms: what wonderful toys can you gift your one-year-old or a very special toddler in your life? With so many one-day toys on the market, how can you choose a gift that will inspire, teach, and entertain your child for months of fun early childhood development play in the next year. The best toys for toddler development are those that help them sort and play with the categories of the world around them, learning how the world works and why it works that way through sensory and puzzle play.
We love Fat Brain Toys because they always come up with a new game to play based on the principles of early childhood development. Spinny Pins is a wobbly bowl with a chime inside and five colour-coded slots. The slots, as you might guess, hold five colourful wobbly pins. Each pin sits, wobbles, spins, and has its unique texture for sensory learning. The pins can be matched to their colour slots and placed upside-down ("hiding" in the bowl) or right-side-up to sit like happy chicks in a nest.
Spinny Pins offers hours of colour-matching, wobbling, and musical fun. More importantly, it teaches hand-eye coordination, pattern matching, and the fundamental physics of differently weighted wobbly objects that are safe and fun to play with.
Have you ever watched gears spin with fascination? So do babies! Gears are inherently interesting as the little teeth line up, and the big gears spin the little gears at different speeds. With the Gears & Cogs Busy Bee Learning Puzzle, your toddler can explore the delight of gears with big, safe wooden pieces lined up on a fascinating pegboard of posts.
One-year-olds can learn how to fit gears and cogs of different shapes together, line up the teeth, and how gears turn each other. As their puzzles get more complicated, they can build and rebuild new machines, then turn the crank handle to watch their whole machine turn! This toy teaches fine motor control, visual perception, hand-eye control, and cognitive logical problem-solving at an early age.
The Inny Bin is genius in its simplicity and potential for hours of rapt play for a curious one-year-old in your life. The Inny Bin is this: a BPA-free plastic cube frame where each side has a "cage" of colourful fabric-elastic bands to form a box. This springy box is a collection of six clunky textured 3D shapes that match the colours of the bands and can - sometimes - fit between the elastic. Children can play for hours figuring out how to get the shapes into and out of the Inny Cube and learning about tension, elasticity, size, shape, and colour all at the same time.
This cube is a puzzle, toy, and clean-up box all in one, as children can load up their bright colour shapes and take the entire Inny Cube to another room without a mess as a special gift to the parents (even if that's you).
Last but certainly not least, let's not forget the Colour and Shape Sorter. Hape is beloved for natural wooden toys that teach children essential early childhood development skills. The Colour and Shape Sorter is a beautiful carved wooden board with six slots, three circles, three triangles, and three squares. It comes with nine prisms matching in shape, each a little taller than the last. Each shape-set also represents a colour palette of blue, green, and orange.
These simple pieces that fit together, stack, and match can teach a young one-year-old so much that newer toy designs can never diminish. Critical thinking, fine motor skills, pattern matching, shape and colour naming, and colour palettes can be learned with simple exploratory play with the Colour and Shape Sorter board and blocks.
Is there a special one-year-old who's going to get an exceptional gift this year? Play kits, stacking toys, Hape, Melissa and Doug, Fatbrain Toys we have them all! If you are looking for a gift guide this selection has it all for tiny hands and beautiful minds.
The best gift you can give is toys that inspire early childhood development and a lifelong love of learning.
KidzInc has the best educational toys for kids. We are here to help busy parents when it comes to selecting toys that develop their children. You can see our full collection of educational toys for one year olds here.
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When choosing baby toys, do you pick something with high contrast, a wooden toy, something black and white or something to develop their motor skills? At KidzInc, we believe educational toys for babies is the best choice. No matter the colour or contrast.
When it comes to giving gifts to infants, we always think of their future. Babies learn from everything they see, touch, hear, smell, and gum.
They are learning to explore first their own hands and feet, then the incredible wide world around them.
As the holidays approach, many of us find ourselves trying to find the perfect gift for an infant, whether you are a proud (if exhausted) parent or a loving nearby relative or family friend who will be an important part of this infant's life.
While you could gift a basket of strawberry-banana mash, what will light up a baby's eyes is sensory toys.
After all, it's new senses and experiences that babies are learning from most of all - and exploring as pure delightful play.
We've put together some of our favourite sensory toys for infants that make fantastic gifts for the upcoming holidays or the special first birthday for the infant in your life.
The Skwish is a sensory exploration of colourful wooden balls, posts, and springy string. The Squish flexes when you grab it, it bounces when you throw it, and it makes dozens of geometric shapes when looked at from any angle.
Babies can start to grasp the basics of STEM as soon as they can watch a toy fall and roll, making the classic Skwish one of the best for early sensory exploration.
It's no surprise this toy has won numerous awards for its simple yet perfectly fascinating design.
The Manhattan Toy Skwish is made from entirely renewable rubberwood with water-based non-toxic paints in bright primary colours. Every Skwish is double-tested and is ensured to exceed safety codes for both US and European markets.
Babies love to stack, nest, and watch toys wobble. Why not give your infant a gift that does all three at once? Tobbles Neo is a beautiful six-cup stack of two-coloured wobbly cups, each slightly larger than the last.
Every foam cup has a two-tone colour you can name, its own weight, size, and place in the stack.
Babies will learn hand-eye coordination and spatial awareness while practising stacking, and their observation of both wobbles and fall-down stacks will teach them early lessons in how gravity and mass work together.
These tobbles are perfect for baby hands just learning to grasp and starting to stack. As a gift, tobbles will keep your baby happy long after they tire of playing with the wrapping paper; and they'll be learning crucial early development skills with every stack and tumble.
Every curious or critical thought your infant has, they are learning to think. Every time your infant experiences something new and tries to find a pattern, they become more able to find patterns and think critical thoughts in the future.
That is what Wimmer-Ferguson designed the Mind Shapes Blocks to inspire in infants and toddlers. Awareness, object permanence, and pattern building are key to early childhood development.
At a glance, these are three soft blocks, one sphere, one cube, and one pyramid. But look closer; you will find contrasting shapes, interesting pictures, and a unique chime inside each block.
The texture of the block fabrics is different from soft cloth to crinkle paper making these the perfect research-backed sensory toys for your infant or a baby in your family.
Bees teach us all a little something about science. Everyone loves adorable buzzing honey bees; they teach us about colonies and pollination and how honey is made. But these bees teach about weak magnetic force and its gravity-defying effects.
The Dizzy Bees Magnetic Stack will delight infants and toddlers who already know about stacking blocks. These bees don't tumble, but they do wobble and stack on top of each other and their cute honeycomb stand.
These bees and their stand are made of soft silicone and ABS plastic, thoroughly safety tested and BPA free. In blue, orange, and green, the baby in your life will adore the Dizzy Bees without realizing they are gaining a lifelong love of STEM and science-based toys.
If you're choosing a special gift for your infant or a beautiful baby in your life, sensory toys that inspire early childhood development and STEM learning are the best kind of gift you can give. Give the gift of critical thinking from an early age and hours of fascinating fun this year.
You can find our full collections of educational toys for babies here
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Have you ever had a mechanical toy and wanted to know how it works?
Robotic toys inspire a child's curiosity and interest in STEM learning, but children are rarely encouraged to take apart a robot toy to find out why each part moves or speaks. We've found that children who build their own toys not only gain a deeper understanding of the materials. They also gain more confidence to take control of the world around them.
Part of choosing the right toys for your children is to embrace a life-long love of science and learning. This is exactly why Mecha the Mechanical Dragon Robot was designed for children over eight years old with an interest in how things work. From mechanical engineering to software programming, Mecha is designed to inspire children to truly imagine the possibilities of applied STEM and build the foundations of robotic and programmatic later lessons.
Mecha is both a mechanical dragon toy to play with and a robot that your child will build and program. Mecha the Mechanical Dragon Robot includes 2 DC motors and a drive wheel that help it to move it's mouth, flap its wings, and turn. Multiple sensors are used to detect sounds like a clap or a whistle and interact with your child in play.
When building the dragon is complete, your child can take control through a programmatic mobile app that will teach them how to program the dragon robot's behaviours and responses to interaction. Children can build, deconstruct, and rebuild the robot to gain full understanding of it's mechanical parts, while they program and reprogram its behaviour to explore robot software control.
By building and programming their own robotic toy, children will build a foundation in engineering STEM skills and a lifelong interest in mechanical and programmatic play.
The wonderful thing about Mecha the Mechanical Dragon Robot is what children learn along the way. The challenge of building a dragon robot and teaching it to respond to claps and whistles is fun in itself. But the steps required and the skills learned in making the robot are even more valuable than the finished project. Here are the STEM and developmental skills children and teens will learn when designing their own Mecha dragon.
It takes careful and logical thought to complete a robot and to program its behaviours through an app. Children will learn to apply detailed directions to a real-world project and to apply their own inherent understanding to a mechanical problem to understand the robotics. In teaching themselves to build and program the robot, each stage of the project helps a child practice their critical thinking skills.
Mechanical engineering starts by understanding how gears and motors fit together to make an object move. A mechanical dragon is cool enough, but knowing how its wings flap and where the clap-listening sensors are teach a child the real mechanics behind the modern world. Building a robot gives your child a foundation in mechanical engineering that will benefit them in later advanced classes.
Robotic systems take mechanical engineering to a new level. This explores how a motor moves a wing and has an effect. Learning robotic systems may lead to designing industrial machinery or even prosthetic limbs in applied sciences.
Once Mecha is built, the software and programmatic learning begin. Through the mobile app, your child will grasp the basics of building a program that a computer or robot responds to. They can sequence commands, change the responses to sensor stimuli, and change the program at will. This will introduce children to the basics programmatic thinking and software programming.
Building a foundation of STEM learning is always great, but Mecha's real appeal is that the dragon robot is also a fun toy and mechanical companion. Children feel like they have really achieved something when they put the robot together and get a responsive dragon toy as a reward. The app puts the power of a dragon in their hands, controlling it's robotic responses and playing games with friends controlling or responding to the robot dragon. When children get used to one set of responses, they can program another and the game begins again.
The best thing about Mecha is that children barely notice they're learning, because they're having so much fun.
To purchase your Mecha the Mechanical Dragon Robot you can visit our Clementoni range.
]]>For babies, every game and toy is a learning experience. Everything your baby touches and every force they observe teaches them something about the world. This item is hard while this one is soft. This toy bounces, but that toy does not. This toy fits into that toy, but not the other way around. Every lesson helps your baby or toddler grow their understanding of the universe and start to build a foundation for critical thinking. This is why we love educational toys so much, even (especially!) at the earliest ages.
Tumbleroos by Fat Brain Toys are designed to stimulate a baby and or toddler's early developmental skills and their foundation for STEM learning in the future. It's incredible that three simple cups can teach so much!
Fat Brain Toys focuses on making toys that inspire early childhood thought and skill development and Tumbleroos are no exception. Each set comes with three nesting cups in fun primary colours. Each cup has a large egg-shaped bottom that is rubberized and weighted to make the cups wobbly but tip-resistant. The three cups wobble on their own, stack into each other, and can be tumbled over on purpose. What's incredible is how much your baby can learn by playing with weighted, wobbly, cup stacks like Tumbleroos.
Why do we make baby toys in bold primary and secondary colours? So we can learn colours together! The largest Tumbleroo is blue, the middle is green, and the top tumbler is red. This will give your infant a fun frame of reference when naming the colours of toys in their room together. Once a toddler starts learning colours, they'll name the colours of their Tumbleroos for fun and practice.
Tumbleroos are, at their heart, stacking cups. We know that stacking is great for a variety of early childhood control skills. Hand-eye coordination is needed to line up and nest the stacks while fine motor control is used to manipulate and control. The tumblers are also large enough to engage large-motor control and standing to stack them can encourage balance development.
Watching stacks wobble teaches first-hand physics and lays your earliest foundation for STEM learning. Tumbleroos teach a toddler that round bottoms can't stay upright, but balanced cups can if stacked carefully. Every cup wobbles, and the way it wobbles shows how it is weighted and the value of a weighted bottom. Your toddler will learn without even realizing it.
Nesting and size-difference is an essential skill for young children to learn as they figure out how the world works. Because this stacking kit is made of cups, your baby will learn how smaller cups nest into larger cups, but not the other way around. They will learn that stacking Tumbleroos by size always gives the best results.
Each Tumbleroo has two textures, the rubberized bottom half and a smooth plastic cup top. The difference in texture and even temperature conduction will provide an element of sensory play for your baby.
Last but not least, Tumbleroos are safe for all manner of infant play, including teething, banging, and tossing from high-chairs. Tumbleroos are designed to roll, wobble, and settle upright for endless indestructible play.
If you are stocking the perfect nursery for your little one's early childhood development, Fat Brain Toys has your interests at heart with every design, including these brightly coloured stacking wobble-cups we like to call Tumbleroos.
To purchase your Tumbleroos, you can simply go to our Fat Brain Toy Co range.
]]>When you choose an educational toy for your toddler, you are choosing to develop life longs skills. Educational toys for kids develop math skills, emotional skills, playing skills, hand-eye coordination and more.
Why do we give children toys? It's not just to see their beautiful smiling faces. It's also because children learn something from toys - quite a few somethings.
A learning toy is more than just a toy. It is a life long gift. There is no greater pleasure than watching your child develop. From baby to 18 months, to older kids we have something for every age group and developmental area.
The lessons of early childhood are learned with the senses, fingers, and imagination. Children need to get their hands into everything to learn from it. They need to roll cars, stack blocks, to drop things and watch them fall.
So what are the best educational toys for your toddler? You want to fill your nursery with toys they will love to play with and will learn from organically each day. Here are some of our favourites based on what they teach through natural play:
Young toddlers learn the basics of the world around them through toys. Simple toys teach the elements of an object like colour, shape, and the sound it makes when it falls. As play becomes more complex and imaginative, children learn how the real world relates to their thoughts and vice versa.
Every baby should have a toy that teaches them the colours, with a full colour wheel and the names to learn. Some repeat the colours, some provide interactive play. The Dimpl Digits toy is a beautiful example of a baby colour wheel that is also a bubble sensory toy.
Children aren't just nurturing when they play with baby dolls, they are learning about people and how we relate to each other. At first, a baby doll is a friend with similar anatomy and a different face. The Wee Baby Stella is a perfect starter doll for young toddlers as their new best friend and baby. Stella even has her own binky.
Even before children have siblings, they can have a baby doll friend. Dressing the doll, holding the doll, and even tossing it around will teach your child about anatomy and similarity in people.
Imagination games and physics lessons seem to go hand-in-hand for young children. Block play is essential, but so are vehicles. Baby's first train sets and construction trucks give them the chance to imagine new worlds and adventures - and to roll their toy cars down block ramps. Children will learn fine motor skills, physics, and learn to imagine adventures with their cars and trains of circus animals to play with.
Sensory learning quickly turns to manipulation and fine motor skills. This is where toddler toys develop into logic games, puzzles, and fine-motor challenges. One of the best sensory starter toys for teaching logic and manipulation skills is Djeco's Lockbasic wooden puzzle. This puzzle has three different kinds of latches attached to a hinged wooden puzzle toy with animals by shape and colour hidden inside.
For more manipulation games, explore the delightful Gears & Cogs Busy Bee learning puzzle. Children can build a network of cheerful gears and cogs that turn each other using gear puzzle pieces and a board of posts sized just right for gears of various diameters to be placed. Children can build machine after machine with this simple yet fascinating toy.
For gravity fun, try a toddler's marble game. Simple marble run games are delightful and from there, you can advance your toddler's marble skills and possibilities with fun pieces like spinning pinwheels, trap doors, and more.
Games are an important part of toddler development, too. Parents often benefit from fun board games that help to structure the chaotic and giggle-filled way that toddlers play. Turn-taking and physical wiggle games are great for helping your little ones learn how to play socially and also practice their larger motor skills together in a group.
The Monkey Around game by Peaceable Kingdom has fun cards with prompts for silly wiggly actions. When the action is complete, the player places their card on the monkey tree game board to win.
Or we have these beautiful new wooden toys from Djeco.
Finally, creation toys are an essential part of teaching your toddler to realize the potential of their own actions. Equip your toddler with multi-coloured modelling dough and see what happens. The fantastic creatures, towering cities, and clay families that form will show you how your toddler is learning to translate their thoughts into real-world actions and creations. A child who learns to play creative games will be more confident, creative, and a self-starter in their teens and adulthood.
Looking for the perfect educational toys for your toddler and beyond? We have a huge range of educational toys that teach as they play, so it should be no surprise that we have a wide range of beautiful toys that we'd love to share with you.
]]>The toys you choose for your children can have a huge impact on them: on their ability to interact with the world around them, to focus and concentrate, or simply to explore their senses and everything they have to offer. Dimpl Pops and Dimpl Pops Deluxe offer a number of benefits that make them one of the ideal products in your child's toy box--or to bring with you on the go.
Dimpl Pops helps engage the senses in a way that is known to help reduce anxiety and create a deeper overall sense of calm. It offers two key advantages. First, it can help keep your child quiet and engaged in an environment where he might not have the ability to run around freely, from waiting in a doctor's office to standing in line at a popular attraction. Next, it can help calm your child down when he's feeling overwhelmed, which may make it easier to calm tantrums before they begin.
Physical fidgets can go a long way toward encouraging focus in many children, particularly those with ADHD. Minor physical activity or sensory stimulus can help improve the levels of neurotransmitters that help with focus and attention. As a result, children who play with toys like Dimpl Pops while trying to take in other information, including learning both in the classroom and at home, may find that it's easier to focus on the information being presented to them than a child who is expected to only pay attention to the information directly at hand.
For young children, sensory awareness is critical. Increased sensory awareness means a better understanding of the world as a whole. Children who have strong sensory awareness are often more aware of how things fit together or how pieces of it work. As they pop the little buttons on Dimpl Pops and Dimpl Pops Deluxe, children will have a chance to explore texture, cause and effect, and color, which may help with their overall understanding and awareness of the world around them.
Both Dimpl Pops and Dimpl Pops Deluxe include different-sized bubbles that children can "pop" as they continue to explore their devices. They're specifically designed for tactile exploration and can help encourage the development of fine motor skills: a vital addition to any child's learning and development arsenal. With those fine motor skills, children will have an easier time gripping a pencil, eating, or taking care of the many self-care tasks they do every day that require the use of fine motor skills, including zippers, buttons, and more.
Whether you're traveling no further than a local shop or you're planning to take a longer road trip, sometimes, you need to engage your child with a toy that doesn't take up a great deal of space and does allow for plenty of sensory exploration and fun. Dimpl Pops and Dimpl Pops Deluxe will fit easily in your car, in a travel bag, or in the bottom of your child's stroller, making them the ideal toy to take with you on the go.
Sensory exploration and growth are incredibly important to your child, and Dimpl Pops and Dimpl Pops Deluxe offer that advantage and more. Check out the Dimpl line or our collection of amazing sensory toys to learn more about their potential benefits to your child, from entertainment to calm.
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Creative kits for kids are an excellent way to offer more creative opportunities for your kids: opportunities for them to stretch their minds, grow their capability and learn new ways to look at the world.
Despite developing their natural creative skills, they are brilliant for fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination development.
From scratch art kits that allow kids to explore their artistic sides as they uncover new ways to look at art to fairy light bulbs that can project magic into the room, there are plenty of ways to enhance your child's creativity and encourage them to take a new look at the world.
Consider some of these advantages when looking at craft kits for kids.
Through creative play, kids can take a whole new look at the world and how it works. Creative kits for kids can help encourage them to look at things in a new light. Origami lights, for example, not only encourage kids to try folding and shifting paper to look at it differently and accomplish new things, it can allow them to completely transform their space and take a fresh look at the room itself. Garden stone painting might enable your child to redesign a garden or take a new look at how paints might react on different surfaces, as well as allowing them to explore specific textures.
Creative problem-solving and problem management have become increasingly important, not just for kids but for adults, as well. It has become a critical tool that companies posting open jobs rely on as they hire new employees. Creative kits can help provide kids with the tools they need to start down that journey to developing more effective creative problem-solving skills. With a paper planes origami kit, for example, kids might have the chance to look at how the paper folds in different ways or how to handle a missed fold--and how to shape future projects, including many that go far beyond origami.
Creative play is a great way to help expand kids' minds--and many creative kits for kids are designed to help encourage their interest in other pursuits. For example, this glow in the dark mould and paint space kit can encourage kids to increase their interest in the universe and everything it has to offer--and set them up for future successes in astronomy.
Creative kits for kids help take kids' eyes off the screen and encourage them to interact with things in a more physical way. As they paint, explore, touch, and create through those creative kits, they'll also develop both fine and gross motor skills in a way that they can't while interacting with a screen. From origami to painting, creative kits for kids can expose them to a wide range of potential activities that can build skills they will need in the future.
Learning to understand the world through sensory play is critical to your child's overall development since it helps encourage them to experiment with the world and know it better. Creative kits for kids often contain sensory components, from paints and clay to rocks and paper, that can help improve their connection to all their senses.
Have you considered purchasing art and craft kits or creative kits for kids for the little learners in your life? If so, we have a beautiful range to
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Dimpl by Fatbrain Toys. There is something inherently satisfying about popping a half-bubble inside-out. We've all played with some version of the toy.
Kids cannot resist these beautiful buttons. They are fun, fascinating and impossible to put down.
Encouraging fine motor skills, the vibrant silicone bubbles are built safely and almost impossible to put down. Their little fingers can't resist! They are the perfect sensory adventure, brilliantly fun and fascinating.
Popper sensory toys teach a variety of early childhood development skills. They are the inside-out fidget toys you can swap over and over again. We love this tactile, inside-out, bouncy action whether we're six months old or centenarians. Sensory exploration, fine motor control, pincer grip, and hand-eye coordination all come in to play with popper toys.
Few parents, kids, and toy enthusiasts know that Fat Brain Toys did the Dimpl craze of popping toys first.
The Dimpl line of toys includes sensory toys for your earliest infant to fidget poppers you'll see hanging off teen backpacks and in professional desk drawers. Starting with a simple bubble popper, Fat Brain Toys responded to popular demand by developing a set of toys that multi-generation families can enjoy together.
Love to pop? Have a baby in the family learning sensory joys? Dive into the complete Dimpl collection.
The silicon bubbles are in varying sizes, BPA free, and have a sturdy abs plastic frame; the simple delight of poking these beautifully designed push and pop buttons is endless fun. Simple yet oddly brilliant fun for almost anyone.
The Dimpl popper toys are, at their core, sensory toy. No matter how old the player, dimples are fun to press and pop. Babies learn the joy of popping with their first popper toys. Fat Brain Toys has a great set of Dimpl toys made for babies and early toddlers. These offer sensory exploration and the development of basic motor skills and the control pincer-grip used to hold a bubble from both sides.
A fun stack of colourful bubble cups with a popper upgrade. The bottom of each Dimpl Stack cup is a Dimpl button, encouraging babies to explore balance and pressure in addition to colour and size when stacking. Popper stacking cups add a new element of early science learning for infants. Stacking cups are also a fun toy for babies through the stacking milestones of early toddler development.
The perfect teething toy for floor play, these Wobbl toys are a natural application of the Fat Brain approach to toys. The top of each colourful toy is a Dimpl sensory teething ring, while the bottom is a weighted wobbl base. Your baby can happily teethe on and play with the top toy and bat at the wobbl - all while keeping their teething toy surface off the ground.
Sensory boards are a fantastic way to nurture early childhood development for babies and toddlers. The Dimpl sensory board is shaped like a colourful flower of sensory pop-buttons in different sizes for your infant to explore.
As your toddler starts to learn early lessons from their toys, Dimpl is there to make those lessons sensorily satisfying and fun. The toy line has two great bubble boards designed to teach colours and shapes.
Your baby's first colour wheel can be a sensory board, too! The Dimpl Digits colour wheel is a circle of colour wedges with the colour names embossed on the colours. At the end of each wedge is a same-coloured pop bubble to play with.
The Dimpl Duo board teaches your toddler colours and shapes. Starting in a soft-cornered rectangle of six popper buttons, each button has a shape that changes how the button presses, with the shape's name above the button. Each shape also has its colour to practice colour learning.
Of course, sensory toys are fun for all ages. Fat Brain Toys didn't leave out the older kids in their fun Dimpl line. There are game boards and fidget toys the whole family can enjoy for older kids, adults, students, and grandparents.
The Simpl Dimpl is a two-bubble fidget spinner keychain. The classic fidgeter is a great sensory toy that makes no sound and doesn't need a desk to spin on. Palm the keychain and enjoy the casual pop of the colourful bubbles from one side to the other. The fidget poppers are ideal for grade school kids to grandparents who like to fidget.
Want to invent games for bubble poppers? You can start with the Dimpl Pops boards. These boards come in two sizes, boards with a colourful grid of 18-bubbles and larger 25-bubble boards. The bubbles are a variety of colours and sizes arrayed roughly in a grid on a round-cornered board. It can be passed around a group or played solo. Invent your family games or even use them as an organizer.
Are you looking for a sensory toy for your infant or sensory fun for the whole family? Explore the original Dimpl line of bubble sensory toys by Fat Brain Toy Co at Kidzinc.
]]>Fidget toys have substantially increased in popularity in recent years. Previously used only by subsets of the population that might have struggled with focus and concentration, now, awareness of fidgets and their benefits have spread to neurotypical children, especially those who might be struggling with anxiety or focus issues. Sensory toys are a great tool for all sorts of children, especially in learning environments--and through trial and error, you can learn which fidgets work best for your child's specific needs.
Have you considered the benefits of using sensory and fidget toys as part of your child's regular routine?
Children, particularly children with ADHD, often have a hard time sitting still and focusing. Often, they start wiggling in their seats long before the instruction is actually over--and they may find themselves struggling to keep up with what's going on in front of them. A fidget toy allows children to control those movements and direct them into a more positive stimulation, rather than one that could prove distracting for others. Options like stress balls, for example, can fill one hand while a child works on another assignment, or fill both hands while a child listens to a teacher.
Among children who used fidget toys, academic scores could quickly increase as much as 10%. For children with ADHD, that number can rise even more, with an increase of 27% in academic scores shown in a recent study. In order to facilitate maximum learning, children need to stimulate both the right and left sides of the brain. Movement can aid significantly in that pursuit. Fidget toy options like wobble cushions can offer a simple way to enhance overall learning.
Children who look for the type of stimulation offered by fidgets naturally will look for other options that provide the same basic stimulation if they do not have them available. Tapping pencils, bouncing in their seats, or poking at classmates could all pose disruptions to the other students around them. Fidget toys, on the other hand, offer a more positive, less disruptive option in the classroom. Toys like Fidgigami can occupy a child's hands and engage the child's mind without posing a distraction to other students in the room.
Some children struggle with a high level of anxiety on a daily basis that can interfere with their ability to learn. Others may have anxiety related to specific situations, like taking a test or giving a presentation in front of the classroom. Fidget toys can help calm the child and put him or her in a better place to engage in those activities, which can improve scores, enhance academic performance, and ultimately increase the child's confidence. A weighted lap pad, for example, may serve the same purpose as a weighted blanket in a much more convenient, easy-to-carry format: it can help calm a child down and reduce anxiety while they work on specific assignments or test, or help calm them so that they don't feel anxious about performance when reading aloud or engaging with classmates.
Fidget toys and sensory toys have become increasingly common in the classroom in recent years, and with good reason. Whether you're a teacher looking for ways to improve performance in a classroom or a parent looking for options that will help keep your child more engaged both at school and at home, check out our extensive collection of fidget toys to select one--or more!--that will work great for your child.
]]>Stacking is one of the first logical challenges your toddler will ever set for themselves. Around a year old, babies start to stack. They'll stack blocks, rings, and stuffed animals. Small children like to stack anything that has a similar size and shape - and sometimes things that don't. This is a wonderful sign of early cognitive development and creates a path to important development milestones in fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, and early mathematics.
Stacking toys give your toddler even more to explore. The littlest stackers delight in a variety of textures, weights, and nesting stack. As your toddler grows, they will develop an interest in stacking games with fun rules and group play. Watch for milestones as your baby stacks their first blocks and little towers.
Which are the best stacking toys to encourage cognitive and fine motor development? Which will be the most fun to play with and grow up with your toddler as they stack two, then three, then six blocks together? Let's explore our favourite stacking toys for any modern nursery:
The best place to start is sensory stacking. Babies may start to stack around 12 to 18 months when their experiences are highly sensory. Toys with different textures, weights, and colours are fascinating as babies explore their senses and the difference between objects. That's what makes the Tobbles Neo stack so much fun for our littlest stacking baby or toddlers.
Each Tobble is shaped like half an egg with a soft scalloped top to make stacking easy with the added fun of nesting the different-sized pieces together. All six pieces can spin, bounce, and stack in wobbly fun towers on top of a scalloped base.
Looking for stacking blocks and a musical toy in the same set? Hape offers a beautiful six-piece set of stacking blocks, each with its own fun musical sound. Made from natural wood, the blocks range from big to small for fun tapered stacking. For extra joy (and musical noise when they fall down) every block is its own musical instrument. The largest block is a drum, the next a three-note xylophone. The middle block is a bell your baby can ring, then a wooden washboard block and the smallest is a little blue music block to go on top.
Your toddler can explore early music and sound development and the joy of stacking in one beautiful wooden set.
Every toddler loves animal toys. Keeping a farmyard of animal toys often becomes practice for their very first pet. Djeco's TopAniFarm is a genius set of stacking blocks that double as little homes for animal pets. Each of these six blocks is a house for a different animal, making an adorable barnyard of friends or a stack of peek-a-boo pets looking out of their little homes.
The bottom layer is a house for a bull with a hay bale painted on the outside. The next is a doghouse for a puppy with a cute spotted eye, then a little pig-house for the pig. On top is a cute tree-house for a kitty, a bunny box for the blue rabbit and finally a little birdhouse for the hen.
As your toddler becomes skilled at stacking, it's time to play some games! Djeco introduces a fun stacking and memory game called Zirafa. The goal is to be the giraffe with the looooongest neck. Flip cards and play the memory game to earn neck pieces. As neck pieces are earned, players are challenged to stack them onto their toy giraffe - without toppling them over. The player with the tallest un-toppled giraffe wins!
Babies and toddlers stack to learn, play, and reach their developmental milestones. Give your toddler the Stacking toys that will help them develop both cognitive and motor skills through the fun of making just about anything into a tower of toys.
You can buy stacking toys from our curated range here.
]]>Let's look at why musical toys are so crucial to early childhood development.
Babies notice and dance along to the music as soon as they can purposefully move their limbs. An infant can remember a melody long before they learn the meaning of words.
It's even been proven that infants prefer the sing-song voices that parents use when talking to babies (we're not just cooing, we're singing to the baby). What this all reveals is that music is at the very heart of being a human.
Infants love music, remember melodies, and are attracted to new music as part of their natural curiosity. So it's no surprise that musical toys for babies are always a favourite in the nursery.
The classic baby's xylophone and musical-tone toys speak more clearly to your infant and toddler than words. As little ones learn their first motor skills by grabbing, banging, and dropping, they can be learning their first musical skills a well.
Children who study and participate in music-making and use musical instruments when they are young tend to show clear academic advantages later in life.
Learning beat and rhythm instils the basics of math. Playing an instrument builds fine motor skills, and playing together builds social and emotional skills. Music also connects to pneumonic learning and the physical benefits of dancing. But it all starts in the nursery.
Music for babies and toddlers starts with the discovery of sounds. Just like finding out they have hands, infants are discovering every new thing as they put together their full understanding of the world.
Exploring musical sounds is especially exciting, and many toddlers become music enthusiasts given instrument toys in the playroom. Which instrument toys are perfect for your baby or toddler? Let's explore some of our very favourites.
The best place for babies to start is something they can shake. Babies love to grab hold of an instrument that makes a noise, especially if the noise is musical. There's nothing like the look of infant delight when a rattle makes a new jingle, different from the last rattle.
The Animambo set by Djeco is the perfect shake, rattle, and roll set of musical toys for babies and toddlers alike. Enjoy this three-set of festive instruments, including a baby maraca, tambourine, and little wooden castanet, each beautifully painted on natural wood.
Children learn and grow so fast that the best toys are those that grow with your baby. The Pound and Tap Bench by Hape does precisely that.
The toy begins as a xylophone at the bottom of a ball-hole fitting game.
Then the pound-balls are dropped in each hole; it makes a different noise and then rolls musically down the xylophone for sound discovery play.
As your baby grows in creativity and motor skills, the xylophone can be pulled out of the pound-ball track and explored more fully with an adorable wooden mallet on the colourful track of notes.
Babies love sound discovery. It's why we equip them with various pots, pans, and Tupperware (and the classic wooden spoon) to discover all the different sounds that can be made. But you don't have to stop with household items. Hape has designed a beautiful sound exploratory set that goes beyond the home's pots and pans.
This six-piece box set includes a xylophone box, a drum box, a washboard box, a bell box, and more. The boxes can be stacked like blocks, and each one makes its own unique range of noises.
Want a toy that's lovable and musical at the same time? Explore the adorable Musical Lili Llama by Manhattan Toy.
This llama is several baby instruments in one cute, almost pet-like toy that your child can interact with, like a pretend animal friend or their favourite musical toy.
The llama's chest has a fun spinner, its back is a 5-note xylophone, and its tail is a detachable maraca. Its ears can be pulled to use as mallets for the xylophone, and along the side are clicking gear spinners and a washboard surface. Lili is one musical llama.
If you are looking for the perfect musical toys or musical books for your baby (or a baby in the family)? Natural wood and baby xylophones are a beloved tradition that nurtures essential steps in early childhood development.
You can purchase a musical toy for your baby from 6 to 12 months and up from our carefully curated musical toys here.
]]>History and science have both shown that block play is an essential part of early child development. When children play with blocks, they are learning about the world and exploring their own ability to create. What children learn from playing with blocks starts with motor control but soon evolves into exploration, science, and creative expression. Children build, deconstruct, and build something entirely new from the same parts. They learn the weight and balance of each block and how shape influences those features. They build scenes to play pretend and obstacles to knock over.
Children playing with blocks can also learn to play and build with other children, even across age-group gaps. Those encouraged to explore during block play time also learn confidence and self-starting. This is why parents and educators alike always make sure there are more than a few wooden blocks available for young children to play with. From the first time your baby starts banging and stacking all the way through school age, children have an abundance to learn and games to play when playing with blocks.
If you have a young child, a classroom, or a baby on the way then it's common to investigate which wooden blocks are the best starter kit for your child(ren)'s early development and joy in playtime. Let's explore some of the wonderfully simple and inspiring wooden block sets to start or add to your collection.
Planks are one of the universal shapes for construction. You can stack them on edge or flat for columns. They can become homes, towers, towns, or dinosaurs by how they are stacked. Some planks may form structures while other become the 'people'. The simple block inspires infinite adventures, which is what Kapla intended when they crafted the 200 Wooden Block Planks set.
The perfect size for little hands of younger kids and the details constructions of bigger kids, these planks are ready to become the cornerstone (corner plank?) of a diverse collection of blocks and building toys. Kapla planks are crafted from 100% renewable pine grown in the French forests. They are safe, natural, non-toxic, and eco-friendly.
If you're looking for your toddler's first architectural blocks, Hape's Maple Block Set is the ideal starter kit. With 50 large and brightly coloured wooden blocks, your child will be able to explore the beginnings of block cities, rocket ships, and creative works parents can never truly predict. The Maple Block Set includes squares, rectangles, planks, triangles, and half-circles to explore the full possibilities of building and early childhood physics. Each block is finished in cheerful blue, green, red, yellow, or natural maple. This block set is perfect for babies and toddlers and pairs wonderfully with other nursery toys.
Want to upgrade to real block city building? The Petilou 60 Piece Building Block Set was designed to turn your playroom into a block skyline. The Petilou set includes a wider diversity of block shapes, sizes, and colors to build with and comes with a handy canvas tote for quick clean-up. Watch your child build castles for toys and forts for themselves. See cities rise and fall and watch the wonderful STEM process of early architectural experiments. What falls down and what stays up? Which blocks can be balanced to make new shapes in the stack? These are the exciting lessons from a large and diverse wooden block toy set.
The one great limitation of block play is that blocks fall down. Well the Tegu brand has ingeniously come up with a solution to teach an all-new round of STEM lessons through early play: Magnetic wooden blocks. Each block has magnets embedded in the sides so they adhere to each other for bigger, better, and more spacious block constructions. The starting set is a 24 Piece Tint set. Tegu magnetic blocks are made from natural wood with safely embedded magnets and non-toxic child safe paints, with a beautiful rigid box designed to become your long-term toy storage.
Building the perfect nursery and play room is all about understanding what really matters to children's happiness and early childhood development. Simple yet infinitely possible toys like wooden blocks are the key to encouraging your child to explore their own creative power and learn naturally from the world around them.
You can shop from our carefully curated wooden blocks here.
]]>Sensory play is important for the overall development of any child. Not only does sensory play support overall cognitive development and provide inclusive play for children of multiple ages and ability levels, sensory toys, from Wobble Cushions to Dimpl Sensory Toys can have a number of advantages for children of any age.
As your child engages with sensory activities, it can enhance the nerve connections that help facilitate spatial awareness or help your child learn more about the world around him. Sensory play can help enhance children's overall understanding of their world and give them a better idea of how they can interact with it, which can help benefit them in many ways as they grow older and continue to explore. Toys like Sensory Playfoam, for example, require a great deal of interaction and encourage awareness of different colors, different textures, and the way those textures interact with one another and with your actions.
How the world works is a mystery to particularly young children. As they interact with sensory play products, however, they often gain a better overall awareness of the world around them: how it feels, smells, and even tastes. That awareness can help better develop their connection to the world around them, enhancing fine motor skills and giving them a better idea of how things work in general.
Some children struggle more than others with some types of sensory input: specific sounds, textures, or tastes, for example. By interacting with things like sensory mats, however, many children find that they are more comfortable dealing with those textures and other stimuli over time, which can help them better interact with the world as a whole.
Many sensory play activities help enhance both fine and gross motor skills. Working with Thinking Putty, for example, can help build hand strength and encourage fine motor skills, while interacting with bubbles, sensory mats, and other large-scale sensory play items can help build gross motor skills, including improving balance and situational awareness.
Sensory activities are often very grounding, especially those that incorporate multiple senses. Through those grounding exercises, you can help your child feel more connected to the world around him and enhance his sense of calm. In many cases, engaging in regular sensory activities can help encourage your child to calm himself and even provide new calming rituals that can help during temper tantrums and meltdowns.
Many sensory play toys, from putties and doughs to blocks, mats, and more, help encourage creativity in play. Many of those toys do not have specific structures that children must follow in order to play with them effectively. Instead, the sky is the limit--and children can explore all of those options in one easy-to-access toy or location. They can pull, twist, squish, and play--and all of those play types are considered acceptable and even desirable.
Are you looking for sensory play items that can help enhance your child's development, encourage creativity, and put your child in a better position to learn and grow? We have a wide range of sensory toys that can help build those vital skills, encourage development, and even help calm your child.
Check out our collection or contact us today to learn more about the many benefits of sensory play and how it can help at every stage of your child's development.
]]>Plus-Plus Blocks offer hours of exciting play for kids. If your child can imagine it, they can build it! Plus-Plus Blocks come in a variety of packs, from a neon pack filled with different colours to allow your child a world of creativity to building packs that will help give your child a place to start as they work on a variety of different projects, including robots, mermaids, and princesses. For smaller hands, Plus-Plus Big can offer amazing creative problem-solving and building fun.
Plus-Plus Blocks are an incredible STEM toy that offer many advantages to your young learners.
Whether you're offering Plus-Plus Big to your 1 to 6-year-old children or pulling out a regular Plus-Plus Blocks kit for older kids, including kids ranging from 5-12, they're ideal for encouraging fine motor skills, which are critical for a child's overall development, progress, and even school success. Fine motor skills are vital for writing or engaging in a variety of artistic activities--and Plus-Plus Blocks are designed to help encourage them. They provide encouragement for children to sit down and put together small pieces in a variety of shapes. As their fine motor skills improve, they'll be able to put together more complex designs, which can help feed their desire to further improve those skills.
Like fine motor skills, spatial awareness is vital for growing children. Plus-Plus Blocks fit together in a variety of ways, snapping together to form fantastic sculptures of anything your child can imagine. In order to put together those amazing constructions, however, your child will need to learn how the Blocks interact with one another to form those shapes and patterns.
Spatial awareness can help your child learn how to interact with his entire environment. He'll learn how small pieces fit together, what elements make them work together, and how to manipulate them in order to achieve his goals--and he'll do it all with one easy-to-master toy that will encourage creative thinking.
Each Plus-Plus pack comes with idea cards that can help get your child started down that creative journey, but the uses for each block kit do not stop there. Through interaction with Plus-Plus Blocks, your child can build better creative skills. Plus-Plus Blocks offer a huge range of creative options. Your child can then take that creativity to other areas of his life, including school, home, and even future work opportunities.
Plus-Plus Blocks can be manipulated into a wide range of shapes and patterns, but it takes time and effort to learn how to manipulate them. Not only does that require creativity, it requires problem-solving capability--and it teaches it in a way that is fun and exciting for your child. As she puts together Plus-Plus Blocks in a variety of shapes, buildings, and constructions, your child will become increasingly adept at managing problems and figuring out how to address them quickly. That enhanced problem-solving capability can help your child feel more confident when addressing future issues and problems, provide her with the patience needed to stick it out when she's struggling, and build her willingness to try creative solutions, even when, on the surface, they don't seem to work as well as she had first hoped--because that creative solution could be just around the bend.
If you're looking for an excellent STEM toy to help encourage creativity and build your child's skills, Plus-Plus Blocks offer a wide range of opportunities to explore. Check out our extensive collection of options today to learn more about how they can benefit your child.
]]>From their earliest days, playing with the right toys is critical for your child's development. Choosing the right toys can help your child develop learning and problem-solving skills that can carry them through school and beyond, enhancing brain development and setting them up for success. Choosing high-quality toys can help improve your child's cognitive processing skills and provide them with the assistance and skills they need in order to succeed in many areas of life, from education to future job opportunities.
Like many of the toys in the Fat Brain Toys line, Dimpl Digits helps your child learn several critical developmental skills as they explore the world around them.
Each wedge in the bright colour wheel contains a bubble that children can press, creating a soft popping sound. They can then flip it over and pop the bubbles all over again, providing them with a fun sensory experience that they'll be slow to put down. Each silicone bubble has a different raised number, creating a unique texture under your child's fingers. This tactile exploration is a great way to keep little hands busy no matter where you are: waiting in line, playing in the floor at home, or taking a trip in the car. Tactile exploration is also a great way to help older kids pay attention to the task at hand, giving them an outlet for their energy and allowing them to focus more effectively on listening to instructions, lessons, or parental input.
The Dimpl Digits toy forms a full colour wheel that will be sure to light up your child's eyes and encourage colour recognition skills. Your child will love learning to identify the different colours as they handle them and name them for you. The bright colours will also encourage colour appreciation and catch your child's attention.
Fine motor skills are critical for many stages of your child's development. With Dimpl Digits, your child won't realize that they're learning--but they'll develop those vital fine motor skills nonetheless. Improved fine motor skills can make it easier for your child to write, cut, and handle fine tactile motions. As your child manipulates the silicone bubbles in the Dimpl Digits toy, they will have the chance to naturally improve those skills, all while enjoying a fun tactile experience.
Like many of the toys in the Fat Brain line, Dimpl Digits does not just serve a single purpose. It also serves to encourage children to learn number recognition and counting skills. Each little silicone bubble has a different number on it from one to ten. As your child plays with Dimpl Digits, he/she can run his/her fingers over those numbers or take a look at them directly. Encourage number recognition as you play with your child by encouraging him/her to touch a specific number or to count his/her way around the circle.
Choosing the right toys for your child can make an immense difference in overall development. Dimpl Digits is designed to help enhance fine motor skills, encourage colour awareness, and improve number recognition, all in a convenient, easy-to-carry form that your child will be eager to play with. Whether your child needs a toy to use as a distraction when you're out and about or your child needs a new toy to add to your home collection, Dimpl Digits will be sure to fit your needs. Purchase Dimpl Digits today to help encourage your child on his/her learning journey.
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As the parent of a young child, you may already be aware of the need to provide your child with access to STEM materials and toys. By providing your child with STEM development toys, you can enhance those critical science, math, and technology skills, allowing your child to start to explore the world in a new way and encouraging development in those areas.
The Dimpl Stack by Fat Brain Toy Co is an excellent way to start enhancing STEM skills from a young age, allowing your child to explore the world around them and providing him/her with much-needed sensory exploration that will help with brain development.
The Dimpl Stack contains five separate stacking cups topped by a silicone bubble, which children can press and play with as they work to stack the cups. Each cup is a little bit smaller in size. While your child can use several methods to stack the cups together, ultimately, the cups fit together best when stacked in ascending size order. Your child can learn vital building and engineering skills--all without realizing that he's/she's doing any such thing. With each cup the tower grows, the more confident your little one will become in his/her building skills. Your child will also have the chance to test the cups on different surfaces, learning how they interact with the cups to create a more effective structure. Will the cups stack better on carpet or on hard flooring? Will stacking them on a high chair tray help him/her get them higher? You might already know the answer, but for your little one, those explorations open up a whole new world of exciting STEM skills and interactions.
Fine motor skills are incredibly important for little ones, and providing them with toys that can help develop those skills can help encourage and guide them as they move forward with their structures. The cups in the Dimpl Stack are the ideal size for little hand to grasp and stack. As your little one stacks those cups together, he/she will learn more about how to carefully manipulate objects and get a better idea of how they interact with one another and the environment around him/her. As his/her fine motor skills improve, he/she will more consistently be able to build the tower to greater heights--then knock it over for a new sensory experience and a lesson in cause and effect.
An important part of learning and growing, not just in STEM fields, but in overall development, is using the senses to explore the world. Your little one will engage with toys with hands and mouth. Dimpl Stack provides the perfect tactile experience. Your little one will learn that when he/she presses down on the soft silicone button at the top of the Dimpl Stack cups, it pops inward. When he/she reaches in from the other side, it will pop back out again. Not only that, he/she will have the chance to explore the different textures of cup and button: hard plastic on the cups, with a softer texture on the top. Each silicone button also has its own unique pattern, which will help provide your child with the experience he/she needs to connect further with the world around him/her.
Are you looking for a toy that will help your child learn and grow?
Dimpl Stack may provide exactly the sensory, tactile stimulation your child needs. Check out the Dimpl Stack product page today to learn more about its features and how it can benefit your child's growth and development, or make a purchase now to allow your child to start playing as soon as possible.
]]>From your child's youngest days, you want to provide them with toys that will stimulate them, encourage brain development, and help them grow. PipSquigz Ringlets are an excellent choice for helping to enhance your child's growth and development, providing STEM-supportive skills and learning that will help set your child on the right path.
Tactile exploration is an incredibly important step for little learners. Little ones need tactile experiences to learn about the world around them. They need to touch different textures and explore unique things in order to better understand their interactions with the world as a whole. PipSquigz Ringlets have six unique rings with different textures on each ring. Not only are these rings perfect for little learners to run their hands across, they're the perfect size and shape for teething children to put in their mouths: a whole new way for children to explore these toys and learn more about the world as a whole.
This sensory experience will also help encourage your child to further explore the world around them. Children learn and explore best when they are stimulated by rewards. PipSquigz Ringlets each have a different texture, which means your child will have a unique experience every time s/he interacts with a different ring. As a result, s/he will naturally feel excited about checking out each of the different pieces--and often take that curiosity and exploration to other areas of their world, too.
PipSquigz Ringlets lock neatly together and pull back apart again: the perfect way for little hands to explore fine motor skills. The littlest learners will get a giggle out of pulling the rings back apart again and again after you take the time to snap them together, while older babies will enjoy snapping the rings together for themselves. This simple pull apart/snap back together motion is incredibly important, not just in allowing your child to explore the world, but in enhancing fine motor skills. Fine motor skills will help your child as s/he moves through school, providing him/her with the skills needed to colour, use scissors, and use a pencil or pen. Enhanced fine motor skills from an early age can help set your child up for success. PipSquigz Ringlets will help your child develop those skills in a way that doesn't feel like learning. Instead, your child will simply feel as though s/he is having fun! As s/he takes the rings apart and snaps them back together again, s/he will also have a chance to explore cause and effect and the way things fit together, helping them gain perspective on the world and how he/she interacts with it.
With today's busy lifestyles, you want your child to be able to learn and grow wherever you are, whether you're waiting in line or headed off on a road trip. PipSquigz Ringlets are the ideal toy for taking anywhere. The rings will hook easily to anything you like: your child's carrier or car seat, the high chair in a restaurant, or a stroller as you head out for a walk. Your child can continue those fun sensory explorations while you take care of your errands or simply get in some exercise, taking that learning and growth with you no matter where you are.
Are you looking for a great addition to your child's toy box? PipSquigz Ringlets could provide the exciting sensory experience your child needs to help with growth and development. Add the PipSquigz Ringlets to your child's toy box today and watch your child's growth and development in new and exciting ways.
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When you choose a toy for your child, you want to be sure it's one that has value: one that will encourage brain development along with allowing for hours of playful fun. The Fat Brain Toys Wobble Run delivers.
This classic ball run toy adds a twist that little ones are sure to love: a wobbly base that shifts back and forth as the balls roll down the slope, creating even more engagement and movement for your little one.
The Fat Brain Toys Wobble Run also offers several advantages for your child's overall brain development.
Fine motor skills are incredibly important for developing little learners. As they grasp the balls in their hands and maneuver them into the appropriate spot, little ones will continue to develop these vital skills. Balls can quickly roll away or out of their grip, encouraging them to keep trying again and again. These balls are ideally sized for little hands, so they're easier to hold on to than the marbles you might find in a smaller marble run.
Developing fine motor skills can help your child learn how to manipulate small pieces and even help improve handwriting skills long before your little one first wraps their fingers around a crayon. Fine motor skills can prove imperative in navigating everyday life--and providing the right toys, like the Fat Brain Toys Wobble Run, can make it easier to develop those skills.
What happens when you drop the ball into the track? How does it impact the toy when you wobble it from side to side? What if you poke the ball and set it rolling? The Fat Brain Toys Wobble Run allows plenty of opportunities for cause and effect learning. Through their interactions with the toy, little ones will get a better idea of how the world works and what they can expect during specific interactions. Their play will teach them that the same things happen each time they perform those familiar actions, enhancing their overall understanding of the world around them.
A willingness to experiment is incredibly important, both in childhood and as your little one grows and develops. Experimentation can help show your little one what happens when they take specific actions, how to adapt those actions, and what they need to change in order to get the desired response. Through that experimentation, your little one will learn what happens when they drop the balls, rock the base, or move it around in their play space. A willingness to experiment will not only encourage your little one through play, it will provide vital adaptive skills that will aid them in many areas of life. Satisfactory experiments in this arena can encourage your little one to explore in others, too!
Like many of the toys in the Fat Brain Toys line, the Wobble Run allows for sensory exploration. The balls are weighted, providing a satisfying heft in your little one's hand. Each of the tracks comes with a unique texture, which your little one can explore as they learn more about the world around them. This sensory exploration is ideal for little ones, who benefit from bright colors, unique textures, and other interactive learning opportunities like those offered by the Fat Brain Toys line.
The Fat Brain Toys Wobble Run works much like a traditional marble run, with removable run pieces that can be put back together in any order and different textures for your little one to explore. It also, however, offers the advantage of being ideally designed for little hands, making it the perfect toy for little ones between the ages of one and three.
You can buy your Fat Brain Toys Wobble Run here.
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