Blocks And 3d Puzzles

It is 90 plus degrees and too hot to go outside; but, still I began thinking about Christmas shopping as I picked up a few items yesterday afternoon while I was at my favorite dollar store.

Christmas shopping can be fun, profitable, and best of all, stress-free. Stay with me here; picture this. You have just discovered you have some “unscheduled time”, time to yourself and no one needs anything and you do not have to go anywhere – it can happen!

Because there is no rush and no time constraints, boot up your computer and have some fun shopping for some new children’s wooden toys either for your kids, grandkids, or extended family and friends kids.

Parents who shop early as in July, August or September have more time to explore toddler learning toys on various websites and locate wood blocks, indoor playsets and other wooden kid’s toys which you will most likely not find in retail stores.

Take your time; it is fun to meander around different online toy stores and your feet won’t begin to hurt! Think about the excitement on Christmas morning when your toddlers open up that special gift, that unique toddler toy no one else on your block has yet to provide their kids.

Maybe you will select an African Safari indoor playset, or a dinosaur puzzle playset

Each dinosaur is an individual toy.

 found at All I Can Imagine. Or you might begin getting your child (or add to a previous) set of ImagiBRICKS, giant cardboard building blocks.

Because you have chosen to shop early you will not have to worry about delivery issues that often occur in December when you wait to shop. Shopping will also be fun because you will enjoy browsing around different stores and not have to think: “I’ve got to find a nice toy today, I waited until the last minute, again, with no idea of what I want to get.

Take your time shopping for your toddler’s toys; it is only July and it is too hot to go outside. If you find a toy that is on sale so much the better.  Shopping on line is profitable even if you do not find a toy that is on sale because you saved on gas, buying a drink when driving from store to store and you were able to eat from you own refrigerator.

Yes, Christmas shopping can be fun, profitable, and best of all, stress-free and you will feel proud of yourself for being so smart to shop early!

Children, after the age of about three, will have developed pretty good language skills as well as a reasonable amount of motor skills.  Although some exposure to computer programs can be educational as well as fun will you be providing your three year with a computer?

If you decide to do so you will want to be sure the programs on the compute are age appropriate.  And, of course, you will have to decide ahead of time just how much computer time you will be allowing your child.  Setting time limits right from the beginning will cause fewer problems as the children grow and want to spend more and more time in front of the computer.

When selecting computer programs you could ask yourself, is this really necessary? Will the program fit in with your educational goals for your child? The program may seem fun but can it also be used as teaching tool?

Computers and the available programs may be enticing, but there is nothing an infant or young child cannot learn from other sources such as books and games.  You probably do not want your child to prefer to be glued to a computer screen rather than sitting in your lap looking at a picture book together.

You can create more memories with one-on-one personal time interacting with your child. What better way to bond than with individual attention given your precious child. Not only will you get to know your child better you will have more control in teaching him the values and lessons you want him to learn.

Providing your children quality wooden kids toys will enhance his creative play time. There are many unique and fun toddler learning toys on the market today that will give your child the experiences he needs for building eye hand coordination, social skills and other benefits.

Besides reading or playing a game you could sit on the floor with a pretty puzzle play set (pictured) and engage in creative, fun play. With the many animal figures, each a separate puzzle piece, you will have easy opportunities to teach your child about many different animals.

Have your child trace several different animals, cut them out, and color them.  You could make magnets out of them, or even a mobile.  Your child may likely come up with some ideas of his own.

So if you do decide to get your three year old a computer remember to also incorporate plenty of educationsl wood toys for most of his other play time.

Children will use and develop fine motor skills and have fun with this Binocular craft and game. Explore nature and find exciting things in the park, zoo or your back yard.

Spending time in nature is a wonderful idea to help your kids develop their senses. Here is a craft idea you may like to try. I found this at: http://www.twigglemagazine.com/March-activities/binoculars-craft.html

Materials

• 2 toilet paper rolls
• Craft paper
• Crayons, markers, stickers
• Glue
• Scissors
• Yarn
• Directions:
• Cut a 2½ inch wide strip from craft paper lengthwise. Let children decorate the strip with crayons and stickers. Punch one hole at the end of each paper roll. Let children paint strip around the other end of the paper roll and let dry. Add glue to the middle of the paper rolls. Place strip colored side face down on the table. Place paper rolls one inch apart on the strip (see pic 1). Let dry. When dry, add glue to the strip (see pic 2) and wrap around the paper rolls. Place a book on the top to hold in place while drying. Thread a length of yarn through the holes to make a necklace for children to wear the binoculars.

 Tell children that they will be using their binoculars to look at specific objects inside the room or outside in nature. Encourage children to describe in detail what they see. Note: Instruct children not to walk while looking through the binoculars.

When it is time to come in and have quiet play-time offer your children one of our wooden kids toys featuring animals of the Rainforest, Sea or Dinosaurs.  Unique puzzle playsets are wonderful toddler learning toys for ages 3 up.

 Your kids will love the animal figures from the puzzles; each individual puzzle piece is an animal toy and will stand up by themselves.  Your children can play with the animal figures or fit them together as a puzzle while they sit at a table or on the floor.

 These are great educational children’s toys to open up exciting learning opportunities and can be a useful prop during their lessons.

Even though they don’t have a camera-man following them around everyday, these dolphins sure get good press! But do they deserve it?

When we think about dolphins we think of kind, gentle, smiling creatures. We also might think of the many stories of how a dolphin has saved a person from drowning, or even the songs and stories that have been written about their tremendous feats. Who could forget the tv series ‘Flipper’? I mean, they even named a torch after dolphins, with their adverts claiming that it ‘saves lives’.

Dolphins may look like they’re smiling, but that’s just the way their mouths are shaped….I think though, that they may be laughing at us as behind those kind eyes lurks a darker side.

Dolphins are wild animals, and can be very rough and aggressive…after all, they really do ‘swim with the sharks’!

Marine mammal biologist, Trevor Spradlin, says “People have been seriously injured while trying to interact with wild dolphins, and dolphins have been known to bite, ram, and pull people under the water’s surface”.

You can find more fun Dolphin facts for kids at the website where I found this information: http://www.planetpatrol.info/dolpr.html

We have a puzzle play set for kids 3 and up with a sea life theme.  Each puzzle piece is a separate wooden kids toy and is a great learning tool for preschoolers.  These puzzle playsets are also available in a Rainforest theme and a Dinosaur theme. 

The development of gross motor skills for your toddlers is very important! Providing your kid’s playsets with chunky pieces that they easily can grasp and play with will help their muscles develop.

Besides providing your children playsets, giant toy blocks and a variety of other wooden kids toys, Theraputty is another great idea to give your children.  Theraputty is a strong silly-putty-like material that comes in a tub.  It comes in various “strengths” so there is more or less resistance when squeezed. 

Working on a variety of hand skills, it is easy to play with anytime and anywhere – it’s fun and kids love it. Here is a website where you can purchase some Cando Theraputty.  http://www.allegromedical.com/exercise-fitness-c523/cando-theraputty-p555170.html

Each Cando Theraputty is color-coded and has a different consistency ranging from XX-Soft for strengthening the weakest grasp to X-Firm for developing a stronger grip. Available in convenient easy-open plastic containers. Store you putty in this container when play is done and seal the lid tightly so it does not dry out.

You might want to try a couple of different strengths when you first buy this product.  It is good for kids, teens, adults and seniors. It’s just good, fun exercise for your hands.

Remember to see our puzzle playsets at All I Can Imagine. There are three themes of floor puzzles; Rainforest, Dinosaur and Sealife and each of our playsets have chunky pieces that children age 3 up can play with to help them strengthen and develop fine motor skills.

If you guessed that they are all considered rainforest animals you would be correct. Frogs are from the Amphibians category, Bats and Bengal Tigers from the Mammals category.

Other animals that are considered rainforest animals are from categories such as Arachnids, Birds, Insects, and Reptiles to name a few others.

According to Answers.com the Amazon Rainforest has a mossy ground cover and is rich with vegetation, animals and insects. It has many slopes, cliffs and hills for waterfalls and rivers.

The soil is moist because it gets at least 9 feet of water a year. It has many exotic flowers and many fish in the rivers.

Nowadays there are many students studying the rainforest and here is a link with all sorts of useful information for your students. http://www.rain-tree.com/schoolreports.htm.  You may also like this rainforest activity pages link:  http://www.first-school.ws/theme/animals/coloring-pages/rainforest.htm#alphabet.

If your students are 3 and up we offer a unique rainforest 3d wooden puzzle playset on our website. Each animal is its own puzzle piece and is chunky in size making it easy for young children to pick up and play with. All the toy animals fit together to form a pretty 7.5” square puzzle.

To fulfill the needs of all the animals, Noah carefully built the Ark to Gods specifications. The Ark did indeed have room for all the animals that God brought to Noah before the Flood.

Noah did not have to go out and find the correct animals – God brought each one to him and this probably included a young pair of each main type of dinosaur.  God may have just brought Noah the basic types of dinosaurs He first created.

Young dinosaurs would be smaller than full grown adult dinosaurs and easier to care for.  You probably already figured out that the younger dinosaurs would also eat less food and would require a much smaller room.

It is said that dinosaurs lived for a few centuries, at least, after the Flood, but probably not in the great numbers that there once had been before the Flood.  It is not exactly known when dinosaurs finally died out, according to the article I read.

To help teach kids about many different dinosaurs they will enjoy playing with wooden kids toys and playsets that include brightly colored, chunky pieces.  Our Dinosaur puzzle play set is a safe children’s wooden toy that doubles as a 3d wooden puzzle.  Each puzzle piece is a unique dinosaur and makes a separate toy by itself.

Did you know many of the animals on Noah’s Ark may have slept most of the time?

A child’s brain is likened to a sponge and absorbs enormous amounts of a variety of information. Because the brain continues to expand as it grows it is important to expose your children to a variety of open-ended wooden kids toys.

Not only are children exposed to a variety of toddler learning toys at home, there are wooden toys in their daycare, Sunday school and waiting rooms. Where ever your children are becomes an opportunity for teaching opportunities.

You can help your children learn colors, for example, while sitting in the doctor’s office.  If you put down your magazine and observe the toddler toys available you could point out to your child a chair and say to him “this is a chair.  The color of the chair is blue”. 

Quality education is most important to the mental health and growth of all young children and it is because of this that you will find it beneficial to surround your children with playsets, wood puzzles and other toys that have a variety of shapes and colors to keep your children interested in play and learning.

Your child may love playing with a Sealife puzzle playset pictured above.  Each chunky puzzle piece is it’s own creature including a sea horse, crab and turtle.  Made from splinter-proof wood this is one of our toddler learning toys is for ages 3 up.

Creative play is important in a child’s education.  Providing educational children’s toys such as playsets allow creative play for a child playing alone or in a group.

Playsets are also a great teaching tool for lessons.  With the chunky pieces of individual sea animals in the Sealife playset pictured here you can make up games to teach children about the wonderment of under water life.

Here is another game you could use.  Find pictures of sea life creatures, or have the children find them.  Laminate and cut them in half.  Have your children match up the fronts with the backs of the creatures.  If you can’t find any pictures you could trace the individual figures from the puzzle playset onto brightly colored construction paper.

Another variation of this game is for the teacher to mismatch the animals’ halves and see if the children can spot the correct halves.

Home schools and preschools will get years of use out of wood puzzles, puzzle playsets and indoor wooden play sets when purchasing quality educational children’s toys. Shop for toys that are made from splinter-proof wood and painted with non-toxic paints.  And remember to wipe down and sanitize all your toys each day.

The British Humanist Association (BHA) had led a campaign to have Darwin’s theory of how life evolved through natural selection made a compulsory element of the new primary curriculum.

 It organized a public letter signed by more than 500 scientists and supporters.  Andrew Copson of the BHA said: “This is excellent news. Evolution is arguably the most important concept underlying the life sciences. “Providing children with an understanding of it an early age will help lay the foundations for a surer scientific understanding later on.”

 I read the above in an article morning and thought that teachers and parents may like to know about a cube puzzle you can use as one of your kids learning toys for teaching Creation in school and home.

 Your kids will “eat up” the Creation story when this wooden puzzle is brought out.  Many questions about Creation can be explained and a lively discussion will begin when playing with the brightly colored cube puzzle.

Do you know about the AiG Creation Education Center?  This center exists to equip and enable educators to restore the authority of God’s Word by reconnecting the Bible to the real world.  To do this, we need to teach more than just ‘Bible stories.’

Answers magazine is the Bible-affirming, creation-based magazine from Answers in Genesis.  In it you will find fascinating content and stunning photographs that present creation and worldview articles along with relevant cultural topics from different authors. http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am