Blocks And 3d Puzzles

Providing your children arts and crafts time is not only a great “quiet time” play idea it will help your children develop fine motor skills. Crafts that include the use of scissors, beads, crayons, finger paints or anything else you can think of to get their fingers involved will benefit your children.

An old time favorite from the 1950’s is Silly Putty ® and is a great quiet-time activity to help your children with his fine motor skills.  James Wright, a GE engineer, came upon the material by mixing silicone oil with boric acid. The compound, acted very much like rubber in its ability to rebound almost 25 percent higher than a normal rubber ball. My favorite memory of playing with Silly Putty was pressing it onto the Sunday comic’s page and making an imprint.

Did you know that Silly Putty sold faster than any other toy in history with over $6 million in sales for the year?  Silly Putty is now the registered trademark of Binney & Smith Inc.

Besides encouraging craft activities for your children you can also provide other activities such as building toys such as Legos, Tinker Toys and cardboard building blocks. These toys are manipulativies and will enhance fine motor skills just the same as coloring, painting and cutting. 

Toy blocks such as ImagiBRICKS are giant sized cardboard blocks and are available in sets as small as 16 pieces.  Three sizes of blocks are available in the 24 and 40 piece set or you may get a bulk quantity order when you have several children who will be playing together.

Children are always seeking out new ways to play creatively. But, there is also ways you can help them.

Here is a unique way to use your old typewriter; and if you do not have one maybe I will sell you mine!

Children often have a parent who works in an office and you can have fun teaching them about how an office is set up just like the one you work in.  You can set up a mini office with the help of toy blocks by Smart Monkey Toys. These giant building blocks come in sets of Rainbow colors and can be ordered in any quantity you need from All I Can Imagine.

Set up the typewriter or maybe even an old keyboard on a child size table or a table made from the toy blocks.  Make another work table and provide your children paper, pencils, telephone, address book and other child-safe office supplies.  Set up another office and each of you will have fun interacting.

Children enjoy being creative and it will help them to make sense of the actual world we adults live in and they will especially love having you play with them.  When you provide role playing activities in a real life setting you will gain greater insight into your child’s life and help him develop necessary social skills.

Cardboard toy blocks are made in the USA by Smart Monkey Toys. This toy company only uses recycled corrugated cardboard.

Their trade name for these toy blocks is ImagiBRICKS and all these giant building blocks are made of at least 50% recycled cardboard. The actual amount varies with each run, but is never less than 50%. The trees used for the remainder are all farmed.

The wonderful thing about corrugated cardboard is that it is strong, yet very lightweight, making it a wonderful choice for preschool play. The cardboard is printed with water-based, non-toxic colorful inks. And an additional clear ink coating to each block to make it water-resistant. The cardboard building blocks are also recyclable. Every component of the block sets are made right here in America. They are produced in Wisconsin, where there is a large paper industry.

Smart Monkey Toy’s warehouse is near the plant where the blocks are produced. By keeping everything close, this toy company cuts down on the fuel needed to transport materials and providing much needed jobs to American workers.

The paper industry in our country has been struggling with many companies buying their cardboard from China. China has to import their raw materials from the U.S. or Canada to make their cardboard. The lumber is transported from North American to China, made into cardboard and then transported back to North America. The cost of this inefficient process is lost jobs, and much greater use of valuable fuel.

Back in the 1950’s my dad built me some wooden shelves so I could play shopping.  My playmates and I would often shop in our grocery store and to this day I like to go food shopping.

Creative play is an important learning tool for children and they need all the open-ended play time they can get.  Setting up a grocery store that is not as permanent as the one I had in my basement can be built with ImagiBRICKS toy blocks. These giant cardboard building blocks can be purchased online and come in red, orange, purple, green and timber-look. 

The kids in your neighborhood will help you collect empty cereal boxes, cans, pasta boxes, asprin boxes, diaper boxes, etc.  Design your store with the toy blocks then place your products on your shelves. 

Get together and price all your cans and boxes and make some carts out of old boxes.  Kids will have a ball shopping in their very own store and this pretend game will help provide them opportunities to learn organizational skills, mathematical skills and important problem solving skills.

Children can take turns collecting the play money and giving change. After they have finished shopping each child can load his purchases in a wagon and go to her own “house”; which could also be built with the building block toys.

Both parents and grandparents are still buying ImagiBRICKS for their children and grandchildren. Customers are telling us they are happy that these durable cardboard blocks are still available.

You will only find ImagiBRICKS building blocks toys for sale online as they are not usually sold in your neighborhood toy stores.  Parents with limited space can select from 16 piece sets as well as 24 piece sets and our most popular size, the 40 piece blocks toy sets.

These lightweight cardboard blocks are so big they help kids build up their self confidence as they create tall towers, buildings, forts and every other imaginable structure.  Because there is no wrong way to build a child can create to his hearts content and children of varying ages can “work” together for a common goal.

When children build something “all their own”, it makes them happy and gives them a sense of well-being and builds their self-confidence.  Parents and educators who provide their children with large building blocks toys notice that children gravitate to a pile of blocks and immediately begin interacting with one another.

Movement of the large muscles of the body refers to gross motor control and begins developing from birth.  Your babies first learned motor control begins with the control of his own head and torso.

Your child will then go on to master sitting, crawling, standing and eventually walking, running and jumping as well as the range of activities.  Meanwhile your child will be learning balance and the ability to maintain equilibrium, body awareness (for improved posture and control), major muscle co-ordination and spatial orientation.

You can help your children improve and master spatial orientation – the awareness of his body position in space and in relation to other objects (or people), by providing him with giant cardboard building blocks.  Even when your child is too young to begin building structures with toy blocks they are a useful educational toy for other purposes.

By placing the toy blocks around in a maze-like configuration your child will love mastering walking (or running) around the blocks.  To begin building your child’s major muscles and co-ordination, have him/her help you construct towers; this will also help with your child’s balance.

Your older children may want to build structures with the cardboard blocks so have enough on hand for both activities. Sixteen piece set of ImagiBRICKS is pictured above.  We also carry sets of 24, 40 and bulk quantity cardboard blocks.

While your radio is softly playing in the background take a moment and listen to how your kids are playing. You will find opportunities to gently guide your children as they are playing with their toddler learning toys.

Children who have open-ended learning toys will have opportunities for creative learning fun and as you listen to them “plan” and “work” together you will notice that their social skills are developing.  When you take a moment to “tune into” their play you will be able to provide guidance in their social development when and where needed.

While children are playing with such toys as cardboard blocks and building towers and other structures you will notice which children take leadership in the planning.  You will begin to notice if there is a child being bossy or how he accepts suggestions as another child offers his own ideas.

Toy cardboard blocks, such as a set of CityBlocks by Smart Monkey Toys, is a fun toddler learning toy and provides your children an opportunity for creative play and work that builds important social skills they will need all through their lives.

Children playing together are not only creating reality in play, they are also adapting to new realities, work, and therefore it is important to allow children many opportunities for unstructured playtime every day.

Your child will love games played at their level, on the floor.  You and your toddler will have plenty of laughs when you get down on the floor and play with them.

With or without “props” you can laugh yourself silly and kids of all ages can participate.  Play peek-a-boo by crawling around furniture (watch the sharp edges of tables, please).  You could set up pillows and cushions around the room and have races around the objects.

Have a make believe zoo and each person is a different animal.  Talk about the animals and how they might relate to one another.  Before you plan this you could do online research and get some simple facts about several animals; find some that do well together and maybe some who can not co-exist.

Bring out your son’s trucks, earth moving equipment trucks, police cars and fire trucks and make up some games.  If you have large toy blocks such as ImagiBRICKS cardboard building blocks you can “build” garages, police stations, fire stations and such.

Giant building blocks are also good for crawling around while playing peek-a-boo.  Weaving in and out of a maze of blocks helps children learn balance – they aren’t supposed to knock the blocks down while maneuvering around each set of blocks.

Wind down the fun by playing something quieter such as putting puzzles together or coloring. Maybe you will all fall asleep for a little nap right there on the floor.  Just grab one of the pillows and snuggle up with your toddler.

Lions consume a wide variety of prey, from wildebeest, impala, zebra, giraffe, buffalo and wild hogs to sometimes rhinos and hippos. They will also feed on smaller animals such as hares, birds and reptiles. Lions are also known to attack elephants when food is scarce.

Both male and female lions roar, and that roar can be heard over five miles away!

The lion population in Africa has been reduced by half since the early 1950s. Today, fewer than 21,000 remain in all of Africa. 

Though lions used to live in most parts of Africa, they are now found only in the south Sahara desert and in parts of southern and eastern Africa. Historically, in addition to Africa, lions were found from Greece through the Middle East to northern India

The only social member of the cat (Felidae) family, lions live in large groups called “prides,” consisting of about 15 lions. Related females and their young make up the majority of the pride. A single male, or sometimes a small group of 2-3 males, will join a pride for an indefinite period, usually about 3 years or until another group of males takes over.

We hope you enjoyed reading about the Lion, one of our favorite animals.  And, if you have children two and up you may be interested in a wonderful wooden kids toy, our Safari Stacking Blocks (pictured above). Buying open ended educational childrens toys will open up many teaching opportunities as your children play, learn and increase their self-esteem.

More and more people want children’s toys made here in the USA.  Did you know that kids building blocks by Smart Monkey Toys are produced in Wisconsin?

Cardboard toy blocks by Smart Monkey Toys are made in the USA using recycled corrugated cardboard. The toy blocks are made of at least 50% recycled cardboard. The actual amount varies with each run, but is never less than 50%.

The trees used for the remainder are all farmed. The wonderful thing about corrugated cardboard is that it is strong, yet very lightweight, making it a wonderful choice for preschool play. The cardboard is printed with water-based, non-toxic colorful inks and an additional clear ink coating is added to each block to make it water-resistant. The coating is not slippery because we want our blocks to stack.

The blocks are also recyclable. Every component of the block sets are made right here in America. They are produced in Wisconsin, where there is a large paper industry. The warehouse is near the plant where the blocks are produced. By keeping everything close, Smart Monkey Toy cuts down on the fuel needed to transport materials and providing much needed jobs to American workers.

The paper industry in our country has been struggling with many companies buying their cardboard from China. China has to import their raw materials from the U.S. or Canada to make their cardboard. The lumber is transported from North American to China, made into cardboard and then transported back to North America. The cost of this inefficient process is lost jobs, and much greater use of valuable fuel.