Archive for February, 2010
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.
God, it is my settled decision
Not to choose less
When You have chosen more for me.
Not to choose the worst
When You have chosen the best.
Not to stoop to defeat
When You have provided victory.
Not to let my emptiness
Close the door to Your fullness.
The idea for one of the most famous toys in history was inspired by a meter for testing horsepower on battleships. A torsion spring used in a testing meter fell from the desk of marine engineer Richard James and tumbled end-over-end across the floor.
James took it home to his wife Betty and said, “I think I can make a toy out of this.” This he did by devising a steel formula that allowed the spring to “walk.” 
Betty went through the dictionary for a fitting name for the toy and found it in SLINKY, which was defined as “stealthy, sleek and sinuous.”
In 1945, as Christmas neared, Gimbel’s department store agreed to provide counter space for 400 SLINKYs. Richard James was there to demonstrate the toy to a crowd of shoppers and within 90 minutes all 400 SLINKYs were sold. (James Industries)
Fred Kort is a Holocaust survivor who escaped from Treblinka. He was only one of nine people in the world to have survived.
He started his career at General Electric and then as an engineer at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles. After decades of learning about the toy industry, he was finally able to accomplish his lifelong dream of building his own toy company in 1969.
He launched his toy company with only one product, a bouncing ball he called “Teeny Bouncers”. Today, Imperial’s product line features more than 800 year-round and seasonal items which are sold in over fifty foreign countries. (Imperial Toy Corporation)
“Kort is 74 years old and was at Treblinka where between 700,000 and 850,000 Jews were exterminated”, according to Fortune Magazine, in a article written by Carol J. Loomis on April 13, 1998. Ms. Loomis went on to say that ” only nine are believed to have survived and Mr. Kort was one of them”.
You can read the entire article on this link. http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1998/
Mr. Kort arrived in America at the age of 24 with one nickel in his pocket and the rest, as they say, is history.
Nowadays there are other ball toys which are manufactured by Purr*Fection and called Bouncy Buddies. These plush stuffed animals are children’s stuffed animal toys that have a hard rubber ball sewn into their bellies. They can be played with by children but dogs also love them; so remember Fido when you are ordering a stuffed toy for your child.
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.
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.
Like all great apes, gorillas have arms that are longer than their legs and tend to walk on all four limbs at certain times – a movement that is called knuckle walking. Adult males are known as ‘silverbacks’ due to the distinctive silver-colored hair on their backs.
Depending on the sub-species, the Gorillas’ appearance may vary. The Western sub-species tend to be brownish gray in color, while the eastern and mountain gorillas tend to have a more blackish coat. Mountain gorillas also have longer and thicker fur which is adapted to their colder mountainous habitat. The three lowland sub-species of gorillas sport short, fine hair. Eastern lowland gorillas are the largest of the four subspecies.
Gorilla’s eat healthy foods such as leaves, shoots, roots, vines and fruits and are a popular zoo attraction at feeding time. I grew up in Chicago and one of my favorite houses was the ape house. It always fascinated me to watch the large Gorilla’s eating and interacting with one another.
When you take your children to see the Gorillas keep in mind that they are shy animals that are most active during the day. At dusk, each gorilla constructs a ‘nest’ of leaves and plant material in which it will sleep. Mothers usually share their nests with nursing infants.
Gorilla’s are an endangered species and if you home school you can teach your children about Gorilla’s during their science or geography lesson. Here is a craft idea you might like to try. http://www.first-school.ws/activities/alpha/g/gorilla.htm.
For other future lessons see our line of brightly painted 3d wooden puzzles.
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.
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.