Games Archives - Page 7 of 14

Galt Toys offers educational and developmental toys and gifts for kids of all ages

I’m guessing most of you out there are very familiar with Galt Toys, even if you wouldn’t recognize the name. With a history spanning over 175 years and with toys for ages 0-12, Galt Toys has been celebrating the importance of childhood play in Europe and is now moving into North America just in time for the holidays.

From their iconic Ambi Toys collection that I remember vividly from my own childhood to the Galt learning books that are used in schools and homes alike, Galt Toys have been a staple in many homes for generations. Do these look familiar to you?

An indoor playground with Gorilla Gym

“Go outside and play” was the theme of my childhood, when we would disappear in the morning and not come back until late afternoon. Looking back now, I think this is how my mom didn’t lose all her marbles raising 5 children.

I will admit that I love letting the kids loose on our back porch when they just need a change of scenery and a little exercise in the early afternoon, but unfortunately Seattle weather rarely cooperates this time of year and it’s usually rainy and wet. I wish I had a large covered area I could send them to when they need to get their energy out, but unfortunately this is what most afternoons look like.

I know many local moms feel the same way once the rainy season{s} hit hard, as do all the moms out there that don’t have yards to send the kids to. But, whether you’re lamenting the fact that the cold has descended, have a small urban lot, or no yard at all, I have your solution:The Gorilla Gym.

The Gorilla Gym is a way to make any doorway an active play set, so the kids can get out energy rain or shine. My kids adore swings and I’ve always been really sad that a big swing set doesn’t make sense in our sloped yard that’s already maxed out with a garden, a huge trampoline, a deck, a BBQ area, and various other kids toys, so naturally I chose the Indoor Swing Package from Gorilla Gym.

With no drilling, no holes, and no permanent structure to worry about, the Gorilla Gym can be taken down when not in use – which, for us, is very, very rare. It’s not going to be any surprise that the kids are fully addicted to the Gorilla Gym swing and if they had their choice, it would only be empty when we’re gone or sleeping.

A Girl for All Time: Clementine, Your 1940s Girl

Know that feeling when someone catches your eye and doesn't let it go? For me, that someone was Clementine. Compared to other dolls she was a few shades more vibrant, more beautiful, and full of personality. Before I saw her, I thought all dolls were pretty, but next to her they all seemed dull and just so… ordinary.

Maybe it was her bright red hair, or maybe it was because her attire was so quaint and old fashioned, or maybe it’s her distinctly British charm, but whatever it was, she really couldn't help but stand out. I knew right when I met her that she was going to be a lifelong friend for my children.

Clementine is the newest doll from A Girl For All Time, maker of beautifully crafted dolls, accessories, books, and more. Each of their beautiful 16in dolls are based on 500 years of the fictional Marchmont family and feature independent, determined women from different eras of the most exciting times in English history.

One look at their website and I was immediately smitten by their exquisite collection of dolls with their beautifully detailed faces and their accessories that looked like something from a museum. It’s not surprising to me at all that A Girl for All Time can’t keep these dolls in stock over in London. The dolls sold out in a mere 10 days at the famous Harrods luxury department store and are selling well now that they have arrived Stateside at FAO Schwarz and a handful of New York boutiques.

But, as much as I loved Matilda, the Tudor girl, and Amelia, the Victorian girl, there was something about Clementine that enthralled me. Clementine is from London in the 1940s and survives the evacuation of London in 1939 as a 12-year-old. She comes in a historically inspired dress with vintage daisy pattern complete with period accessories and trim. After reading her captivating background story online, I knew she had to come home for tea with us.

Home sweet Lundby {SMÅLAND Swedish doll’s house review}

Home Sweet Lundby
I vividly remember when I began to think in miniature. It was one of the many summers I spent with my grandparents in their small town up north. One of our projects that summer was to build a dollhouse for my growing collection of miniatures my grandma and I had collected at swap meets and secondhand stores as well as things we had repurposed around their home that were to scale.

In my mind, my grandpa and I would make a house fit for our treasures, one with intricate details and style that was just like my cousin’s dollhouse my aunt had made from a kit. But, I will never forget when my grandpa and I started to sit down and design my dollhouse and I realized we were making a primitive A-frame house with scrap wood from the garage. My dollhouse would be without doors, windows, or details other than walls.

Don’t get me wrong, I adored the dollhouse we built that summer. It was more than a few steps up from the shelf in my room that had previously housed my miniatures, and it would be perfect for moving a play family into that didn’t mind a little bit of a fixer-upper. I played with that dollhouse for years and did my best to make it feel more homey and inviting by making my own wallpaper and adding realistic accessories.

But, my desire for a real store-bought dollhouse never went away. Even into adulthood, I would look wistfully at dollhouses that were done up to the nines and imagine my childhood dollhouse furniture I had collected filling those big, bright rooms.

In one of those searches, I found Lundby, the Swedish Doll’s House, and it was as if my childhood play family had finally found “home”. I remember bookmarking the site, emailing the link to my husband and asking him how soon was too soon to start buying dollhouses for our baby girl. We both agreed to wait a few years, but I always kept Lundby in the back of my mind.

Last fall, I lost my grandpa after a long battle with illness and I, myself, felt a little lost. My grandpa had been such a strong figure in my life growing up and I wished more than anything that I had held onto that dollhouse we made all those summers ago. I wanted something to help my daughter remember her amazing great grandfather, and wished that they could have bonded over miniatures like we had all those years ago.

So, when a package landed on my porch a few months later with a welcome letter and a “key” to a Lundby Smaland dollhouse, I was beside myself with joy. I knew this was the perfect way to introduce my daughter to the world of miniatures and to provide a link to my past at the same time.

Introducing the new VTech InnoTab 3S Wi-Fi Learning Tablet

With the start of school a few weeks ago, my daughter has been thirsting for knowledge. She’s always been a curious kid and very interested in how things work, but this newfound love of learning is unlike anything I ever imagined.

She literally bounds out of bed each day excited to learn, she has trouble falling asleep at night because she’s so excited about what she will learn the next day, and she is constantly looking for things to challenge her new skills. All of this is awesome – really awesome – but it’s also exhausting. Sometimes I want to just “do”, not “teach” as I do, but I hate to discourage someone who is clearly craving lessons.

For this reason, I love that I can give her 30 minutes of tech time with her new VTech InnoTab 3S that arrived last week and it gives me a half hour of alone time to get things done. Instead of interrupting me every few seconds with “how do you spell ___?” or “what sound does ____ make?”, I love that when her VTech time is done she comes running back telling me something new she learned – all on her own.

Aeromax Get Real Gear for Halloween and beyond

Imaginations take flight with Aeromax
In our house, we take our dress up very seriously. We don’t merely have dress up time; all play time these days is done in costume. On any given day you will find the kids dressed as princesses, cowboys, knights, dragons, fairies, and doctors to go along with whatever they are playing with.

Our love of dress up lead us to fall in love with a company called Aeromax that makes the most realistic dress up gear anywhere. The kids have never been drawn to the fake costumes with plastic and overdone jewels – they want stuff that they can put on and be able to truly imagine themselves as a scientist in a lab, a police officer keeping the neighborhood safe, or a pilot flying a cargo plane full of toys.

With Aeromax Toys, pretend play has never been more realistic because even though their gear is designed for kids, this stuff is anything but child’s play. Seriously, just look at these costumes from their Get Real Gear line!

We’re talking flashing sirens, metal buckles, sewn-on patches, real buttons and snaps, and reinforced fabrics and details that look like miniature versions of the real deal stuff. For over 15 years Aeromax has been sparking imaginations with dress up clothing and gear from baby on up to adult and has received every top toy industry award.

With Halloween on the horizon, now more than ever we are thinking about costumes. But, with how much my kids love dress up year-round, I never consider shopping for Halloween at stores that carry traditional costumes. You know the kind, the ones that are made of those awful polyester fabrics and are designed to self-destruct before you even make it around the block trick or treating and with accessories so flimsy they end up being held together by tape before the big day even rolls around.

No, that won’t do at all. Our dress up gear needs to last throughout dozens of playtimes, so we need high quality stuff that’s built to be played in. Thank goodness Aeromax knows that dress up isn’t just for October 31st and has plenty of high quality gear that is made to be loved. And, trust me when I say that the gear that just arrived from Aeromax is very, very loved.

We received the Jr. Fire Fighter costume in tan, the Jr. Astronaut costume in white and then helmets for both costumes, and to say they were well received would be a vast understatement. Since my daughter is obsessed with space travel and my son is convinced he is almost old enough to fight fires, these costumes really couldn’t have been any better suited to my kids.

The Magic School Bus Weather Lab from Young Scientists Club {review & giveway}

Anyone who knows my daughter knows that science is a verb in our house. A few months ago, my daughter decided that she definitely wanted to be a scientist when she grew up…. or a ballerina. We ran with the scientist thing.

I never turn down an opportunity to spark my kids’ love of learning, and science with kids can be a fascinating thing that can carry them all through school. So, now we “science” all sorts of stuff each day, anything from basic weather phenomenon, things we find in nature, or concepts that can be hard to explain to kids without hands-on experiments.

Thank goodness there are kits designed specifically for teaching kids early science lessons, because I would be lost on how to start teaching science otherwise. I recently found the Magic School Bus line of science kits from Young Scientists Club and it was as if I had found the coolest toys on earth, according to my daughter.

I loved the books growing up, and we just found the Magic School Bus show after searching for science shows for kids, so as soon as I saw that there were Magic School Bus kits specifically for doing science at home, I was sold. And, then when I saw this kit, I fell in love:

Magic School Bus Weather Lab
Ms. Frizzle and her students help Young Scientists learn about the weather by spinning a pinwheel, making a tornado in a bottle, swirling a paper snake, recreating the water cycle, creating a rain cloud, using a sun dial, constructing a barometer, catching a rainbow, and learning about the greenhouse effect. With a weather chart is for tracking weather with colorful stickers, 28 colorful experiment cards, weather station, weather chart, stickers, and data notebook to record observations, your child will have everything they need to become a little meterologist.

Corolle dolls for every age & stage

You may have noticed a new logo on the sidebar announcing my ambassadorship with Corolle dolls. With two doll loving kids at home, you can probably imagine the excitement upon finding out that we would get a chance to review a collection of new Corolle items this fall and winter.

But, before we get to the new products and how much I love their dolls and accessories, I should explain why this ambassadorship means so much to me. Corolle is a brand that I grew up with, playing with their baby dolls in my early childhood and then later collecting them as a young girl. I always dreamed of one day sharing this love of Corolle with my children and was thrilled when they gravitated towards the brand with no outside influence at all, and even more excited that they became such amazing fans themselves.

What started as a love of a company that made me nostalgic for childhood has shaped my own children’s childhood. It used to be that when I picked up a Corolle doll, I would remember all those nights spent hugging my baby dolls in bed, but now my children’s memories are forever intertwined with my own, and that sweet vanilla scent takes me back to both time periods simultaneously.

VTech Switch & Go Dinos

My son is crazy about dinosaurs and about vehicles of all kinds, so I knew he would think that the Switch & Go Dinos were basically the coolest thing ever. Whenever he sees the brightly colored dino covered boxes when we’re out shopping, he can’t help but hug them all. Of course I couldn't say no when offered a set of Switch & Go Dinos to review right before his birthday.

If you haven’t seen them in stores yet, Switch & Go Dinos are robotic dinosaurs that transform into various vehicles with just a few motions. When in dino mode, they roar like prehistoric animals, and when in car/truck/flying object mode, their engines rev and they make vrooming noises. Pretty much the best toy ever, in a little boy’s eyes.

I already knew that my son would think it was pretty awesome if a few Switch & Go Dinos came to live with us, so I was sure they would be the perfect birthday present for him this September. My daughter recognized this as well and decided that of all the other toys on the market, she really wanted to buy him one of these dinos for his birthday.

Got a math tip for young kids? You could win big with Zorbit’s Math Adventure! {contest}

Teaching my kids to spell and read might just be my downfall as a mom, but both kids picked up basic math from me at a very young age. Ironically, math wasn’t my strong subject in school, so I thought English and reading were going to be where I excelled at teaching, but I guess it goes to show you that you never really know how you are going to be as a mom until you actually have kids.

For me, it was easy to infuse early math with simple games we would play from even the toddler stage. It started with counting to three before we ran, playing counting games with numbers, and adding small objects like toys and foods to make math fun and easy to learn.

With summer here, the last thing we want to do is spend our days indoors with flash cards and workbooks, so I love that I can even take the lessons outdoors. With simple games like hopscotch that teach ones and twos to chalk problems on the trampoline where the kids jump to the right answer, we’ve found all sorts of math games to do outdoors that are so fun that the kids don’t even realize they are learning.

Making math fun is the goal of Zorbit’s Math Adventure, a new iOS app from Best Boy Entertainment for kids ages 3-5 that will be launching in mid-August. Early childhood learning is so important for school success, and giving your child a fun and exciting way to learn the basics is the perfect way to help your child.