Frank Gehry ~ "License to Play"

"My grandparents had a wood stove, and I'd go with her to shops around the neighborhood where we'd buy burlap sacks filled with small, leftover wood pieces. When we got home, she'd open one of the sacks and . . . we'd sit on the floor together and make things out of them -- cities, bridges, buildings. . . . Years later, I realized it was a license to play. That was important to me, because when you start out in architecture, or in any of the arts, the baby steps you take are scary. By the time you get there, you've been through a school system that tries to make everything rational, mathematical, and logical and all of a sudden you're confronted with something that's emotional and intuitive. You look for anchors, and my anchor was this memory of my grandmother."
~ Frank Gehry, Pritzker Prize-winning architect

P.S. Your child deserves wooden building blocks, too.

Out with licensed characters, in with DT

Has your child ever had to endure a play date at a home filled with licensed characters from popular movies or big toy companies, a home full of super heroes or princesses? Have you ever thought about what value is added to their play experience when they're in that environment? Or what they are learning from those toys?

This is exactly the model that Discovery Toys tries to replace, by offering parents opportunities to have award-winning toys, books and games that help children learn while they play. Basic, good toys that usually require no batteries, but do require the child to add his own energy, his own ingenuity.

Wooden building blocks will take your child much further than a pair of flip flops with a popular character on them. Your child can learn to experiment, build, topple, rebuild in a different way, form patterns, and so on.

Board games will teach your child patience, taking turns, following rules and more.

Puzzles teach you child to stay the course until the puzzle is complete, to look for patterns and continuity, visual discrimination.

Imaginary play is important, but the costume doesn't have to be a character. Isn't it more creative to take the boa, take the high heels, take the eye-patch and imagine your own kooky character, that you designed?!?!

Take a look at what's in store for you and your child when you enter the world of Discovery Toys .

Kids in the Kitchen

Brenda Thompson, in her column Kids in the Kitchen, suggests activities that little ones, beginning at age 1, can perform as mama's helpers in the cooking department.

What she fails to mention is how Discovery Toys Measure Up Cups, fit into your plans. They're a set of twelve cups, with the largest being an 8 oz. measure-- "1 cup" in your recipes. You can teach your child math skills as you measure out your ingredients....a half a cup, will be cup #6, half the size of the #12 cup, and so on. There are also toy Measure Up Pots and Spoons, and Measure Up Balance, a real scale for measuring solid and liquid weights. (Good in Science class, too!)

If you're mixing up a batch of cookie dough, remember to use Place & Trace puzzles, which double as cookie cutters for fun-time dinosaur- and bicycle-shaped cookies.

Discovery Toys Holiday Gift Sets

Halloween is over.
Next stop Thanksgiving.

Be the winner at your Turkey Dinner when you bring out the toys and games for the kids at your family gathering. Choose from one of these 4 specially priced bundles:

Baby's First Discoveries #8543
Toddler Discover & Play #8544
Preschool Discover & Play #8546
Family Games #8547

<<< click to enlarge image.

Visit my Discovery Toys shopping cart or click on the links above to purchase.

Happy Holidays!

Creative/ Imagination Toys: Pyramid, part 4

Today we're talking about the fourth layer of our healthy play pyramid: Creative/ Imagination Toys, toys that will encourage dramatic play and social as well as emotional development.

Our new game, Friendship Island, helps a child think about how we make friends, become good friends, and resolve disagreements.

Fashion Friends allows your child to learn about sequencing and construction through over 200 combinations of shoes, accessories, hairstyles and outfits for four 5" dolls.

With Shapes & Laces you and your child can build a story around the 45 colorful shapes as you string them onto coordinating laces. "One day while roaming through the strawberry patch, I saw a beautiful orange butterfly."

List of Hot Topics

DEVELOPMENTAL STAGES
How to Host a DT Baby Shower
The Importance of Touch
Toddler's 2nd Year
Language Development: Banana-fana-fofana


PLAY/ TOYS
Why is Play Important?
Toy Play in Early Childhood
Healthy Play Diet pyramid
Made in China
Toy Safety
Books in the Home
Measure Up Cups video
25 Uses for Boomerings
Pentominoes
Electronic Toys instead of Parents?
Recipe for Modeling Dough


EDUCATION
Nobel Prize Winner on Early Childhood
When to learn a Second Language
Obama's Early Learning Challenge Fund


PARENTING
Sleep Begets Sleep
Healthy Happy Zzzzz
No Parent Left Behind
Journal of Economic Perspectives:Parental time
Teaching Kids about Money
Why have a home-based Business?
Raising decent, happy solid-citizens
Character Education
Tips from Real Parents
Single Mom
Single Mom, part 2

DISCOVERY TOYS
Meet Discovery Toys
Why Start a Discovery Toys business?
How to start a DT business?
How to order Discovery Toys