* This post contains affiliate links. Now that we've had this whole parenting thing under our belt for over seven years (I know. We're surprised, too), it's safe to say our lives our pretty inundated with toys. While we are not curmudgeonly, we are selective and thoughtful with the gifts we give our girls during the holidays. But after close to a decade of buying toys and being gifted toys, it adds up. TO SO MANY TOYS. Over the past few years, we've started purging our toy collection, weeding out toys they've outgrown and coming to terms with toys they just plain don't play with. It's been helpful, as what remains are the toys the girls truly enjoy. So our focus when buying gifts is not only the "fun factor," but the enhancement factor. No, I'm not looking for toys that promise to raise my daughter's IQ 20 points. Rather, I research and seek gifts that encourage learning and creativity while also falling into categories of their interests. Chica loves to doodle. Bug loves challenging her knowledge in a competitive way. Quiz her on what she knows, and she thrives. There is room in fun for education and imagination. So these are toys that I not only don't mind buying, but I know adds something special to playtime. Here are a few things on the Learning and Creative Toy List that will be under our tree:
In Code Master, your Avatar will travel to an exotic world in search of power Crystals. Kids learn how to step through code and understand the logic and sequence behind a computer’s actions. Kids will be entertained while developing an understanding of computer programming principles. For all 60 levels, you’ll have to use programming logic to help your Avatar collect the Crystals and land at the Portal. Think carefully, in each level, only one specific sequence of actions will lead to success. Available exclusively at Target andtarget.com. (Ages 8+)
Created by maestro cellist and composer Philip Sheppard – who recently scored the Star Wars trailer!), Compose Yourself is a set of musical “building bricks” that encourages anyone with any musical ability to “play with” music just as they would with a construction kit. The digital music game features a deck of transparent cards and access to an exclusive website to compose, share with friends and family, or download/print your own custom sheet music – featuring more than a billion melody combinations. Available exclusively at Amazon. (Ages 6+).
Your mission: Expertly transport the laser beam to the rockets so that it can safely return to earth! Younger players can now experience the fun of the award-winning game Laser Maze with an age-appropriate design and challenge for grade school children with real lasers. Available on Amazon and neighborhood toy stores. (Ages 6+).
No specific instructions. Just a bunch of colorful bricks and anything your imagination can come up with! I love that the classic LEGOS are simple and require kids to dream. Stored in an adorable lego-shaped container, this 790 piece set contains a variety of colors and pieces for building anything and everything. The Classic set is the perfect complement to other Lego sets but is just as fun on its own!
Art Supplies
It's the simple things. And simply putting together a gift basket of fun art supplies is the gift that keeps on giving all year 'round! For younger kids, consider a ream of paper, stickers, crayons and a stamp set.
For older kids, upgrade to professional sketch padsand a proper art set.
The Little Scholar Tablet is pre-loaded with over 200 premium educational apps, e-books, videos, and songs! Curriculum areas covered are math, reading, spelling, science and more! Includes a BRIGHT BLUE easy grip protective bumper, front and rear facing camera, and the A+ Reporting app for parents to track children's progress. No Wi-Fi needed with this kid-safe learning environment. Ages 3 to 7. Grades K to 1.
While reading can be a fun endeavor, all kids need a little push and motivation. This is especially true of new and emerging readers. And there are few things more inspiring than seeing your own name and story in a book!
Mabel's Labels now offers personalized storybooks. We have the My Adventures with Disney's Frozen for each girl. The books incorporate fun facts about each girl: their names, where they live, their birthday and even a few of their friends names! The personalized items are woven into the familiar story of Frozen. There are several different story options, including Cars, Frozen Fever, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Paw Patrol, Spider-Man, Star Wars, Barbie, Ninja Turtles and Sophia.
We tend to lose things. Like. A LOT. So I wanted to throw out the lifesaver that is Mabel's Labels. Mabel's offers a variety of peel-and-stick labels that can withstand anything a lively child throws at it. The labels are waterproof, so you can stick them on containers that are thrown in the dishwasher AND you can stick them on clothes (!!!) and run them through the washer. Say what? They're also microwave safe. They're literally amazing. We have personalized labels for both Bug and Chica, and they come in all shapes and sizes, suited for whatever we need to stick them on. Mabel's also makes Bag Tags, which are metal with a clip. Attach them to book bags, gym bags, sleepover bags, suitcases, etc. Label all of your school items for 2016 and maybe those educational toys too ;)
*****
As we continue to do our holiday shopping (which most likely will happen up until the last minute), I'll be sure to add any new toys and games I come across to the list. Happy holidays!
I feel like it's hard to just let kids be kids nowadays. School is more rigorous than ever, with art, music and recess getting clipped back at every chance. And there is the after school chaos of lessons, practice, tutoring and somehow fitting in all the assigned homework. By the time they get off the bus and home from various activities, there's barely anytime to eat dinner, let alone play. And kids? They need to play. Yet, we also live in a very technologically driven world. When kids finish their homework, they immediately take to a screen. I don't love this trend, so we do our best to direct the girls to using their imagination to play with toys or expending energy playing outside. So when they do use a screen, we try to make it count. We aim to make screen time fun and educational. We have a few apps and websites we like, but by far one of our favorites is Tiggly! Tiggly makes learning fun and interactive by developing learning systems and combining toys with specially developed apps which interact with the toys. Each program comes with a collection of shapes, grids or letters. These Tiggly Toys have silicone touch points so your tablet reacts to them just like your fingertips. Tap and the screen reacts.
When the girls were younger, we enjoyed their Tiggly Shapes, which comes with 4 shapes (triangle, square, circle and star) to use with a variety of apps that taught everything from animals to spanish. The programs encouraged storytelling and creativity while helping them grasp the concept of shapes all around them, which the girls thought was so fun! Now that the girls are older, we've upgraded to Tiggly Words , the company’s first learning system for early literacy. Tiggly Words is a set of five vowel toys (a, e, i, o, u) designed by educators to interact with Tiggly's three new iPad apps: Tiggly Submarine, Tiggly Tales and Tiggly Doctor. Learning language skills is an exciting milestone for every child, and Tiggly Words focuses on helping preschoolers recognize phonemes, construct sounds and learn words.
Bug is almost 5 and yearns to read like her 7 year old sister, Chica. Using the letter shapes with the Tiggly apps on the iPad, Bug has made great strides and feels like she is catching up to her big sis! She beams with pride as she sounds out the words. The games are fun but challenge each of the girls on their level. There's nothing better than coming in the room and finding both girls huddled together, giggling over the game. To learn more about Tiggly, visit them on the web, Facebook and Twitter.
I'm not sure about you, but we are knee-deep in Back-to-School chaos. It's been a few weeks, and we are finally settling into our routine. We're catching buses, doing homework and still trying to find plenty of room for fun each day. Unlike when I was a kid, kids have so much pressure: pressure to learn, pressure to perform on the sports field, pressure to test well, pressure to have a wall of accolades to prep them for a successful college career - even in early elementary school. Standardized testing is at an all-time high, and we're demanding more of our kids in schools educationally at the expense of recess and subjects like art, physical education and music. We're asking kids to stop being, well, kids. Kids need time to run, to imagine, to play, to explore. It's amazing how much they learn when you give them an opportunity to have fun. So when I can put learning AND playing together, I consider it a total win! The folks at ThinkFun knows that education doesn't have to be boring - and that kids can have fun while still giving them a chance to learn. Last year during the holidays, I shared my Gifts for Kids Who Love to Code - a wealth of educational toys that keeps learning fun. One of the featured items was ThinkFun game that my girls LOVE called Robot Turtles. Chica and Bug don't even realize they are learning valuable lessons while they play!
Here are a few more ThinkFun games to add to your collection. It's the perfect way to relax and have fun as a family, while still sneaking in some subliminal education:
In Code Master, your Avatar will travel to an exotic world in search of power Crystals. Kids learn how to step through code and understand the logic and sequence behind a computer’s actions. Kids will be entertained while developing an understanding of computer programming principles. For all 60 levels, you’ll have to use programming logic to help your Avatar collect the Crystals and land at the Portal. Think carefully, in each level, only one specific sequence of actions will lead to success. Available exclusively at Target . (Ages 8+)
Created by maestro cellist and composer Philip Sheppard – who recently scored the Star Wars trailer!), Compose Yourself is a set of musical “building bricks” that encourages anyone with any musical ability to “play with” music just as they would with a construction kit. The digital music game features a deck of transparent cards and access to an exclusive website to compose, share with friends and family, or download/print your own custom sheet music – featuring more than a billion melody combinations. Available exclusively at Amazon. (Ages 6+).
Your mission: Expertly transport the laser beam to the rockets so that it can safely return to earth! Younger players can now experience the fun of the award-winning game Laser Maze with an age-appropriate design and challenge for grade school children with real lasers. Available on Amazon and neighborhood toy stores. (Ages 6+).
(Ages 8+)
and neighborhood toy stores. (Ages 6+).
No specific instructions. Just a bunch of colorful bricks and anything your imagination can come up with! I love that the classic LEGOS
It's the simple things. And simply putting together a gift basket of fun art supplies is the gift that keeps on giving all year 'round! For younger kids, consider a ream of paper, stickers, crayons
and a stamp set. 
and a proper art set
is pre-loaded with over 200 premium educational apps, e-books, videos, and songs! Curriculum areas covered are math, reading, spelling, science and more! Includes a BRIGHT BLUE easy grip protective bumper, front and rear facing camera, and the A+ Reporting app for parents to track children's progress. No Wi-Fi needed with this kid-safe learning environment. Ages 3 to 7. Grades K to 1.
, which comes with 4 shapes (triangle, square, circle and star) to use with a variety of apps that taught everything from animals to spanish. The programs encouraged storytelling and creativity while helping them grasp the concept of shapes all around them, which the girls thought was so fun!
