Blocks And 3d Puzzles

Growing up I was lucky enough to live near Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago.  As an adult I used to walk there on my lunch hour for a quick retreat.

With spring in the air it’s time to begin planning a zoo outing with your kids.  But if you do not live near a zoo you could provide your kids with one of our children’s wooden toys from our toddler toy collection of playsets.

Our zoo toy is one of our beautiful, fun-filled toddler learning toys that will bring hours of creative play to kids age 3 and up.  Our zoo toy includes eleven hand-painted animals, a three piece zoo entrance, a penguin pond and four fences.

Besides providing children wooden playsets it is fun to make simple crafts with your kids.  There are several zoo themed ideas I found at this website:  http://www.freekidcrafts.com/zoo.html.  One that I particularly liked was the Giraffe paper bag puppet. (I have always liked puppets and they are great toddler learning toys.)

Giraffe Paper Bag Puppet – Print out one of the giraffe templates ( color – or – black and white). Color the giraffe, if necessary, and cut out the 2 parts. Glue the giraffe’s head to the bottom of a small lunch-sized paper bag. Lift up the fold and glue in the neck of the giraffe so that when you put your hand inside the bag it looks like the giraffe has a head on top of a neck.

Visit our website today and see all our children’s wooden toys!

Let it snow!  It’s fun to go out side and play but when you have to stay in parents can organize some fun inside activities that do not involve electronics or expensive props.

Kids love zoo toys and animals so why not play a game about elephants. Pretend play is a fun activity for everyone and opens up creative play to help children develop self esteem.

To go for an “elephant walk” get the children in one long line. Everyone is to stretch one hand each back through their legs and, with the other hand, take the outstretched hand of the person in front. The children will be lined up, attached like elephants holding trunks and tails. Move to slow music.

Elephant Soccer- Children get into a circle with legs wide apart. Hold their arms down in front of them with hands clasped together for trunks. Roll a ball across the circle trying to get it between someone’s legs. Use only your trunks to keep the ball from going through your legs.

Besides active animal games provide your children with zoo related children’s learning toys such as a Zoo playset by ImagiPLAY.  This wooden kids toy comes complete with a bright Zoo entrance with two large parrots and eleven hand painted zoo animals this play set will open up many teaching opportunities for indoor play.

Noah’s Ark was said to have been the largest sea-going vessel ever built until the late nineteenth century when giant metal ships were first constructed. Its length to width ratio of six to one provided excellent stability on the high seas. In fact, modern shipbuilders say it would have been almost impossible to turn over. In every way, it was admirably suited for riding out the tremendous storms in the year of the flood.

Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch. And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits.A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it. (Gen. 6: 14-16).

The image above is the size comparison between average size one-story home and Noah’s Ark. Illustration from The World that Perished. By the way a cubit is the distance between an adult’s elbow and tip of the finger, no less than 18-inches [45.72 centimeters].

Teaching children about the Flood and the Ark and about all the animals God brought to Noah before it began to rain will become more “alive” when you child has a “real” Ark of his own. 

ImagiPLAY’s wooden toy playset is hand-crafted and has 28 pieces.  This toddler learning toy includes different male and female animals such as elephants, pigs, polar bears, giraffe’s and more. Store all the animals in the Ark for safe keeping.

Although pickles and planets may not have anything in common I did find an interesting idea on the Internet.  Memorize this: “My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pickles”.

Now you are ready to learn the names of our planets.  Ready?   It stands for Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto.  I do not know why learning things in the form of a poem or through a song is helpful but it really does work.

Teaching young children about our planets can be an exciting experience.  There are many games, activities and wood toys that you can find to help keep the learning fun.  And we know “play” is a child’s learning tool when they are not at their desk.

You can begin with telling your children that our galaxy is known as the Milky Way.  It is home to nine planets, their moons and the sun.  The sentence that you just memorized is a way to remember those planets in the order in which they are situated from the sun.

To keep children interested in learning about space and our planets remember to watch for the manufacturers recommended age for any wooden kids toy, craft project or game.  You may like this website  Elementary GLOBE that I just found:  http://www.globe.gov/fsl/html/templ.cgi?elemGLOBE&lang=en . 

Elementary GLOBE is designed to introduce students of grades K-4 to the study of Earth System Science (ESS). Elementary GLOBE forms an instructional unit comprised of five modules that address ESS and interrelated subjects including weather, hydrology, phenology, and soils. Each Elementary GLOBE module contains a science-based storybook and classroom learning activities.

And don’t forget to take a look at our own playset, a wood toy called “ Zoom to the Moon”.  This is an award winning wooden toy for kids 3 up which includes a  portable rocket ship set is perfect for take-along space adventures with 7  hand-painted wooden figures and 5″ x 8.5″ rocket ship tote that has zippered closure for secure take offs and landing!  Hand-crafted for ImagiPLAY from Rubberwood  - an environmentally-friendly hardwood.

You will love the child safe paints and splinter-proof wood this toy is made from.

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.

At the far end of the world, there exists a strange and unusual chain of islands, resting above vast tectonic plates. This is the world of the Galápagos Archipelago, home to salt-spitting marine iguanas, flightless cormorants, and giant tortoises that can live to be more than 150 years of age.

It is also the birthplace of Darwinism, for here in 1835, a young Charles Darwin began to formulate a theory which would turn the world upside down. More than a century and a half later, these mysterious islands remain at the center of a controversy that has shaped the way modern men perceive science, religion, and life itself. The unique ingredients found on the Galápagos have led many of Darwin’s followers to describe it as Darwin’s Eden — a “laboratory of evolution.”

For educators and parents the subject of Darwin’s theory will eventually come up and children will be fascinated with marine and sea life creatures.  At this point it will be necessary to have several educational children’s toys on hand to help with your lessons.

Wooden puzzles and play sets will be a good starting point.  The Sealife puzzle playset has a variety of individual characters you can use to show the differences in each fish, turtle, etc.

When Darwin was a young man he traveled around the world on the H.M.S. Beagle (1831-1836), a research vessel. His job was to make observations on the plants and animals found in the places the ship docked.

While on the trip, Darwin saw many strange and new plants and animals and began to wonder how they could have come to be. He was particularly struck by the animals of the Galapagos Islands, where he found that each island had a different kind of tortoise, a different kind of finch, and a different kind of marine iguana.

You can read more on this interesting website -  http://www.terindell.com/asylum/jason/darwin.html and incorporate the information into your lessons. As you use your educational children’s toys your  lessons come alive and your children will come up with their own ideas and questions to make for a lively discussion.

We know from the Bible that dinosaurs were alive at the time of Noah, because dinosaurs were land animals, and land animals were created on Day 6 of Creation Week  (Genesis 1:24).  We also know that dinosaurs were on Noah’s Ark, since Noah took two of every kind of unclean animal with him—this included dinosaurs Genesis 6:19).

However, the remaining animals left outside the Ark died.  Many of these remains rotted and decayed during the Flood, but many were fossilized by their sudden, catastrophic burial.

The Flood is a fascinating Bible story and using  large wood playsets will make your story telling come alive.  Wooden children’s toys are popular with both boys and girls and well worth the investment.

Wood play sets, such as Noah’s Ark includes many wood animal figures to help you teach your Bible lessons at home, school and Sunday school. When play and story time are finished all the figures store neatly in the Ark.

Read more about the Flood and dinosaurs at this interesting website: http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v1/n1/two-fighting-dinosaurs

Important lessons do not have to be learned in a classroom. Teaching children while they play increases their knowledge and you can all have fun while doing it together.

 You could use blocks or other toys and place them in various locations in the room and discuss opposite relationships such as near and far.  Have children build tall and short towers and discuss how many more blocks it takes to make the taller tower.

 Children like to slide so you can talk about up and down as they climb up and down the ladder of a slide.  Or, have running races and discuss how slow and fast are opposites.

 For wonderful teaching opportunities use educational children’s toys, such as adventure playsets that include many different figures.  This is a perfect way to teach about different animals, what they eat, where they live and so forth.

 An African Safari wooden playset, such as the one pictured in the post, is a great visual tool to teach about Africa and the variety of animals that are indigenous to Africa.  Children love open-ended toys such as play sets and as they use their imaginations to play you will have many teaching opportunities.

Surprise your child this Christmas with a new Arctic play set.  Wooden play sets are one of the best childrens learning toys on the market.

The internet is full of useful information for both parents and teachers and as you use kids learning toys as props your lessons will have more meaning and excitement for your children.

You can begin your lesson with such facts as: The North Pole and the South Pole are also referred to as the Polar Regions. The Arctic is the area around the North Pole.

Although you can walk to the North Pole, you are really just walking on ice. There is no land beneath you, which is unlike the South Pole that has a continent called Antarctica underneath all that ice and snow.

Continue your lesson with this fact: Snow can be very difficult to walk on, because it crushes down when you step on it. Man invented snowshoes, which are very wide shoes that look like tennis rackets. This distributes the weight over a large area, and allows a person to walk easily on top of the snow. 

Go to http://www.americazoo.com/kids/arctic.htm and see  beautiful pictures of arctic animals and read other interesting facts to use with your Arctic wooden playset.

Development of your child’s emotional well-being can be accomplished through play.  By providing childrens learning toys such as wood play sets  your child can play and at the same time master his environment.

When children feel safe, successful and confident, they will gain principles of positive emotional health.  Playing with educational toys will also help create strong bonds between the parent and child.

When playing with wooden kids toys, such as a zoo playset that has many pieces, don’t hesitate to “change the rules” and use only some of the pieces to simplify the play.  Even though this learning toy is meant to provide open-ended play time some children may need simplified play and require less pieces in the beginning.

Provide promps as needed to ensure your child continues to stay interested in his toy and successful and motivated. Throughout the day it may be a good idea to plan short time frames of play and know when to end a play session and move on to another type of learning toy.