My Twinn Black Friday Sale

Black Friday Sale Only! FREE SHIPPING on orders of $100 or more. Up to $70 in FREE GOODS!

If you are hunting for a look alike doll for your daughter this holiday season, then check out the Black Friday sale linked here, with up to $70 in freebies. 

Pretend play is important developmentally, and many children really love look alike dolls.  My Twinn allows you to create a doll for your child with similar features, hairstyle...even freckles!  There are many ways to customize your daughter's twinn!

Puzzle Books for Tweens and Teens

Tweens and teens can benefit greatly from puzzle books as gifts, especially during the busy holiday season, or for a long, lazy summer. There are, of course, many puzzle books to choose from at all age levels, but there are many targeted at special interests, and older puzzle solvers, as in the example pictured above. Educationally, puzzle books can provide opportunity to refine vocabulary or math skills. There are extreme challenges available, whether in dot to dot format, sudoku, kakuro, or in crosswords.  For an ongoing supply, consider a subscription to your tween's favorite puzzles in magazine form, or to variety magazines.

Gift Ideas for Artistic Tweens and Teens

Dot to Dot Super Challenges for Tweens and Teens

If you have an artistic tween or teen, and need a great idea for a simple Christmas gift, these Dot to Dots are not your typical dot to dot puzzle activities. While the dot to dot is a great medium for young children in terms of learning number order, the series pictured above involves intricate dot to dot activities with dots numbering into the thousands, with amazing pictures. There is an entire series of these dot to dots for tweens and teens, challenges, all receiving rave reviews.

Travel Size Dot to Dot Challenges

Wooden Toy Kitchen Sets

Wooden Toy Kitchen Sets Promote Pretend Play

My oldest child is a wonderful baker, and her earliest kitchen experiences were as simple as waving a wooden spoon, from her walker, while Mom created gingerbread house pieces at Christmas time.  Through the years, she enjoyed both real, and pretend kitchen play, and it goes without saying that her toy kitchen set was a favorite pretend play thing.

A charming blue, wooden toy kitchen set...
Image links to details and availability.

Pretend play is very much an educational endeavor, as it allows children to repeat what they've seen, though in pretend fashion.  It allows them the opportunity to invent their own stories, ideas, and scenarios.  It allows for informal use of verbal and mathematical skills, in a tactile environment.  Sometimes, I think that formal schooling has abandoned too quickly the value of make believe.

KidKraft Wooden Toy Kitchen Set in Pink

Wooden toy kitchen sets have a wonderful charm about them, in that they are constructed of simple materials, can be created in a rainbow of colors, and can sufficiently provide a venue for imaginative play that will inspire.

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Costs for woodent toy kitchen sets can range from the $60 area, and up, and can be very simple, or quite elaborate.  Your household space may dictate how elaborate the toy kitchens sets are that you will consider, or your budget may do so.  Most big box retailers will host a given set, often plastic, during a holiday season, but I rarely see the charming wooden kitchen toys in my stores.  There are, however, plenty of online options, from many companies...check out the newest releases in Kitchen Play Sets at Amazon..

Toy Building Sets for Kids

Star Wars Toy Building Sets

Toy Building Sets: What are the choices?

One of the most popular toy themes for boys is building sets, especially when it comes to Lego brick building toys, K'Nex, and building blocks. These toy building sets are favorites, not just for boys, but often for girls, as well.

Toy Building Sets in Colors that Girls will Love

While these toys don't overtly seem to be educational, they do, in fact, provide a great deal of tactile interaction that allows children to develop spatial understanding, and mathematical relationships, as well. The kinesthetic, or tactile, modality is one of the least addressed in the traditional classroom, though in mathematics and sciences, the use of models and manipulatives is not only helpful in establishing concepts in geometry, but also in developing number sense and numerical concepts.

Many toy building sets provide math manipulative qualities in an informal, explorational setting. The good news is that as a parent, you don't need to do formal instruction. Your child's enjoyment of these toys makes it a fun way to make connections. That isn't to say that there's no need for formal teaching, but that the teaching can make even more sense when a child has something to relate those abstract concepts to.



Toy Building Set Tubs Provide Ample Explorational Play

Lego brick sets are great for concepts of addtition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. K'Nex sets lend themselves particularly well to understanding geometric relationships, in both two and three dimensional models. Angles and shapes come into play easily with the snap together building pieces. Advanced learning sets incorporate physics concepts, with amusement park sets, bridge sets, and educational toy building sets created especially for the instructional environment.



Duplo Building Sets Are Suited to Manual Skills of Younger Children

For younger children, a basic set of building pieces is a perfect introduction. The Lego company has Duplo blocks, which are bigger and easier to manage, for smaller hands, while K'Nex has a larger sized Kid K'Nex series. For 5-6 year olds, a building tub of Lego's or K'Nex building pieces provides a good selection for easy play and exploration.



K'Nex Building Sets Provide Explorational Activity Based in Geometry

There are also simple themed sets from both companies, aimed at younger ages, with more complicated designs and plans for older children. Kids seem to have a timeless affection for these popular building toys, and sets can easily merge for expanded building creativity.

You can find the top rated toy building sets at Amazon, along with customer recommendations, and many varied toy building sets not found on the aisles of your big box retailer.

Touchscreen Tablets for Kids: Kindle Fire

Kindle Fire
Tablet Interactivity with Great Educational Potential for Kids

Amazon has introduced a new series of Kindle ereaders.  In particular, the Kindle Fire is interesting as a possible gift choice for kids, due to its pricing, $199.  Price, alone, doesn't qualify a tech gadget as a great value, but based on preliminary information, Kindle Fire has some interesting features that provide a multimedia touch tablet experience:  streaming video and music, web browsing, ereading, and popular apps.  In conjunction with Amazon Cloud storage, digital content isn't stored on the device, but in the "Cloud".  Amazon content is stored free of charge, and other content can be stored, at a fee.

For kids, this is an affordable alternative to the popular iPad.  As a parent, you will want to oversee the content that your child accesses, and take the same precautions you would in any use of online technology, to assure your child's security and safety.  For me, this would mean using the device more as a family tool, and working together to monitor the content and web browsing. 

I am excited about the device for its use in educational purposes, though, as ereading looks to be a rich experience, and children's books in full color will be incorporated into the ereading experience, along with full color magazines.  I love having access to National Geographic for my kids, for example, but get overwhelmed with storing the old issues.

Kindle Fire is available for pre-order now, with its release due on Nov. 15.

Ereader Gifts for Kids

Upper elementary aged kids are very capable, when it comes to navigating many of the popular digital devices available.  However, at this stage, a parent may be reluctant to spend high amounts of money on tech gadgets, and with good reason. 

Moving into the tween stage, kids can become very scattered, forgetful, and awkward.  I've dealt with a few tech casualties with kids who are in the 10 and up age group.  On the other hand, some of the kid-tough electronic learning toys are just a bit too juvenile for these older kids.  While ereader toys for kids are more likely to withstand the rough handling, the content is just a bit immature for the upper elementary age level.

Ereaders can be good choices for this level, with some very inexpensive models available.  Not a replacement for the tablet computer craze, nevertheless, the devices are something other than a video game, and provide a means of augmenting your child's academic progress.

Kindle With Special Offers

Many of the same issues with selecting an ereader for a tween come into play for the upper elementary aged child.  Kindle, Amazon's ereader, provides a cost effective model (Kindle with Special Offers, Wi-Fi version $114), which includes web browsing, library lending, and games.  The only downside is the lack of touchscreen interactivity, though there are rumors of a coming tablet version. 

Barnes and Noble's Nook Touch is another inexpensive choice, retailing at $139.  The device is touchscreen operated, but is strictly an ereading device.  There are not apps, nor web browsing capabilities at this point.  The $249 Nook Color functions as more of a tablet, with color display, apps, and web browsing.