teach.play.inspire.

Introducing the new tagline of Discovery Toys and what it means to you, the consumer.

Teach
•How to Learn
DT products teach children “how to learn” and not just “what to learn”, preparing children
for success in school.
•Engage the Senses
Studies show that children engage more fully in the learning process through the use of
multiple senses.
•Parent Interaction
DT products encourage parents to interact with their children and instill in them
the love of learning.

Play
•Never‐ending Play!
Children want to play with our toys over and over again.
•Parent PLAY
We build in FUN for parents to play with their children everyday.
•Open‐Ended Play
Imaginative, creative play teaches children to “think”.
•High Quality & Safe Play
Our toys meet or exceed all industry quality & safety standards.

Inspire
•Levels of Learning
DT products are designed to grow with your child, to stretch their thinking and imagination.
•Love of Learning
Playing with our products inspires confidence and passion for learning!
•Parents Learn Too
Our products not only inspire children to learn, they inspire parents to teach and learn along
with them.

200th birthday of Alfred, Lord Tennyson

For all my literary readers in NYC, check out this performance, Thurs. Aug. 6. Details at http://www.corneliastreetcafe.com/home.asp

ENOCH ARDEN; A CELEBRATION OF THE 200TH BIRTHDAY OF ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON
Audrey St. Gil, pianist ; Paul Hecht, actor
Enoch Arden with text by Tennyson and score for piano by Richard Strauss.

We have reason to believe this is the only celebration on this side of the pond of Alfred Lord Tennyson's 200th birthday.

"Enoch Arden" is a poem published in 1864 by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, during his tenure as England's Poet Laureate.

The hero of the poem, fisherman turned merchant sailor Enoch Arden, leaves his wife Annie and three children to go to sea with his old captain, who is offering him work.

He finds upon his return from the sea that, after his long absence, his wife, who believed him dead, is married happily to another man, his childhood friend Philip, and has a child by him.

The story could be considered a variation on and antithesis to the Classical myth of Odysseus, who after an absence of twenty years at sea found a faithful wife who had been loyally waiting for him.

The Discovery Toys opportunity

If you've ever had an interest in making money while staying home with your children, this is the ultimate time to consider selling Discovery Toys. I will help you start your own business selling award-winning educational toys that make a difference in the lives of children. Our compensation plan is changing in a few days to become the richest in the industry. New consultants can earn 45% on their sales while in their Success Start period (first 3 months), and our party hostesses get approximately 17% on top of that. There are bonuses galore under the new plan. I will help you set goals and strategize about how to earn the most you can in your own home-based business. If there's a certain amount of money you want to earn, $5oo/mo., $1,ooo or $2,ooo per month, let me show you what you'll need to do to make that a reality. Email me at billietoy@gmail.com

Learning Styles

When shopping for toys, it helps to know your child's learning style. Does he learn through what he hears (auditory learner)? Through touch and movement (kinesthetic learner)? Or through his eyes (visual learner)? Once you identify that, you can match your child's toys to his particular style, or complement his style by choosing toys that help develop his areas of weakness. The Discovery Toys catalog indicates A,K or V for the style(s) a particular product addresses to help you choose the "just right" toy for your special someone.

Examples of toys for various learning styles:
Auditory
Toy instruments (coming to Discovery Toys in September!)
Squeaky ball (Tangiball)
Music CD's (Sounds Like Fun, I'm Going Green, Bilingual Songs CD)
Rattles (Twisty Bug, Rainfall Rattle)

Kinesthetic
Hammering toy (Hammer Away)
Shape Sorter (Sunshine Market)
Construction toys (Bright Builders, Marbleworks)

Visual
Books
Puzzles (Place & Trace, Progressive Puzzles)
Matching games (AB SeasNumber Hunt, Zingo)

"Einstein Never Used Flashcards"

Although I am in the business of selling educational toys, I am proud to say that the toys I sell are DISCOVERY TOYS. If you don't know us, because we're not as big or famous as Fisher-Price or Playskool, we exemplify much of what Kathy Hirsh-Pasek and her co-author, Roberta Michnick Golinkoff talk about in their book, Einstein Never Used Flashcards: parental involvement and low-tech play leads to learning rather than memorizing. (Note: The New York Public library owns 16 copies. To put this is perspective, they have 20 copies of Albert Einstein's book Relativity).

Lane Nemeth, the founder of Discovery Toys, Inc., was also an educator, well-versed in early childhood development. In 1978, when Lane started Discovery Toys out of her garage, she complained of not being able to find in stores the kinds of toys she wanted her own child to play with: toys that were safe, non-violent, engaging, fun, able to stimulate a multitude of senses and learning styles, non-gender specific. She brought in various consultants like Dr. Mike Meyerhoff (Harvard Preschool Project) and Jim Trelease (Read-Aloud Handbook) to make sure that her sales field understood what set us apart from other toy companies. When I read about Dr. Hirsh-Pasek's research, I could almost hear Lane preaching to the Discovery Toys field years ago about what makes a good toy.

Several years ago Hirsh-Pasek visited CBS' The Early Show and talked about four simple things you can do to help develop your child's creativity and further their learning. Read more about that interview at www.cbsnews.com.

Won't you join me in helping parents and educators to get toys that will help children thrive? We need people all across America to carry these award-winning toys into the homes of others through our party plan because these toys are not sold in stores. It's a big job, with money to be made, even during a recession!

Sounds Like Fun

Here's Barbara Milne, the creator of Discovery Toys classic product Sounds Like Fun, singing to a small group of us before our convention began last week in Denver. (over 1 million sold). Her CD is great for naptime and bedtime, with over 60 minutes of soothing voice and guitar music that will calm your child. Use it in the car or at bath time, too; an invaluable tool for auditory learners. The tempo is slow and non-frustrating, allowing children to hear and learn more easily. There is plenty of repetition, which may bore adults, but provides comfort and security to children. Follow along on the ABC chart when playing "Alphabet Sounds," and see the letters in lower case. This product promotes pre-reading skills, math skills, and auditory and language development.

"Give a man a fish...."

Empowering a child to find his own way through life is a critical key to his development. You know the expression, "Give a man a fish, feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you've fed him for a lifetime?" Read as, "A child whose hand is held forever won't be able to cross the street by himself."

Since a child's environment plays a key role in his development at every stage of his young life, we as parents have a responsibility. We need to make sure their environment is pleasant, including the space they're living in, the behaviors of the people around them, and the toys that they have access to. What they are exposed to, inside and outside the home, molds who they will become. Further, it shapes the kind of parent they will grow up to be.

Visits to the park, playground, museums, concerts, exposure to books, games and music...all of these can be beneficial, and need not cost a lot. Many museums have some hours each week where admission is free. Your local library is another spot for free programming and free loans on children's books. Look for outdoor summertime concerts in your local park. Please write in your comments on things you do that other parents may wish to share.

When is a child too old to play with sand toys?

Many people think that playing in the sand is child's play, but the truth is, we're never too old to enjoy a day at the beach. The older the child (or the adult), the more interesting their sand creations can be. It took a Discovery Toys product called Measure Up Cups (see video demo) to teach me that. It's made of 12 graduated cups, the largest being 8 ounces (don't mix your beach set with your kitchen set, though!) and is easily transported to the beach in your beach bag. When my son was pre-teen, he and I were using them to build a sandcastle so complex that the lifeguard on the beach asked us if we had a building permit!

Sandy Feet's book, "Sandcastles Made Simple" offers invaluable tips for making extraordinary sand sculptures. For example, the sand must be very wet, requiring you to dig down deep. Just remember to fill in the hole so no one falls in.

Q: How can I get two 2-year old boys to play together nicely?

A: There are some age appropriate toys that have multiple sets of things, which they can both play with at the same time without fighting. Or a project that they both contribute to assembling...something big enough that they can work on it without getting in each other's space. May I suggest Place & Trace by Discovery Toys...a set of three separate puzzles geared to their age? Give each boy one puzzle with its 4 pieces. They can complete their individual puzzle, use the puzzle pieces to cut out Play Doh, or even cut out cookie dough and bake cookies in fun dinosaur shapes or transportation or house pets (each puzzle has a different theme). Often, an open-ended toy will be played with in different ways by different kids. That's what you need to look for.

Asperger's conference in NY set for 10/19/2009

The YAI/NIPD Network will be holding a full-day conference in October featuring Dr. Tony Atwood, entitled, “The Complete Guide to High Functioning Autism and Asperger’s Syndrome: Making Friends and Managing Feelings”

Attendees will have the rare opportunity to hear one of the top minds on Asperger’s Syndrome and High Functioning Autism.

This conference will be on Monday, October 19, 2009 from 8:15 a.m. to 4:30 p.m at the McGraw Hill Auditorium located at 1221 Avenue of the Americas in New York City (entrance on 49th Street, close to 6th Ave.)

Visit the Conference Website to register on-line. Please note: There will be no on-site registration and seating is limited.

NYC Nursery School madness

Have you seen the parents lined up on the sidewalks at 5 a.m. waiting for the private nursery schools to open their doors and begin accepting applications? If you're a Big Apple parent, you're in luck, as New York Family is sponsoring a panel discussion on Tuesday evening, July 28, to help you through the process without pulling your hair out of your head.

18.5 million children under age 5

40 years ago this week a man stepped on the moon. Evidently, back then we had the American ingenuity and scientific know-how to achieve this feat. Today, the top engineering schools are compelled to fill their seats with students from all over the world because American high school students can no longer compete internationally at the highest levels in math and science. Test results of the last Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) in 2006 showed our 15 year olds ranked 17th in science and 24th in math relative to the top 30 industrialized nations. Finland ranked tops in both math and science.

Representative Dina Titus, Education and Labor Committee Member and Member of the Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education says,

"We know that children’s experiences in the first five years of life greatly influence brain architecture and chemistry in ways that can have lifelong impacts on learning, behavior, and health. And we know that the knowledge and skills gap between children from less advantaged families and those from higher-income families is evident before elementary school. A high-quality early education – one of the most important opportunities we can give our children – will ensure future generations’ success in school and beyond."

Education budgets are being cut at the local and state level, virtually as we speak. Some communities are taking action. Early Head Start, Head Start and Universal Pre-K programs are important, but much can be done in the home before the child begins school during the earliest, most impressionable years, before age 5.

Please share your comments on what is being done in your community or school district to address early childhood education.

Now on Twitter @billietoy

I am now on Twitter!
Follow me @billietoy to get updates of my blog entries.

Suze Orman speaks at DT convention

Once a year DT educational consultants from across the U.S. and Canada gather to learn about our industry, attend seminars and preview the toys for the coming season.

How exciting it was to have THE Suze Orman (financial guru and 6 time Emmy Award winning host of the Suze Orman Show on CNBC) at the Discovery Toys convention in Denver, CO last week! She helped us see the importance of our mission of helping parents connect with their children through play, and told us there's never been a better time to be your own boss. Because education is being cut from state budgets, our products are more important to parents than ever before.

Healthy, Happy...zzzzz

So many moms ask about baby's sleep issues. Doesn't it drive us nuts when our kids are crying because they simply can't drift off into slumberland? Here's an informative video in which sleep expert Dr. Marc Weissbluth talks about sleep. He is the author of "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child." Read more at sleep begets sleep.

New mom Melissa Hines has great ideas at her blog, too.