Archive for March, 2010
When you have a toddler or other young children in your home you want to make sure their toys are safe. You also want toys that are easy to clean and keep sanitary.
ImagiBRICKS are sturdy, and are coated with a nontoxic coating so they can be wiped down without damaging the toy blocks. When you purchase cardboard building blocks for your children there will be no sharp points or edges; an important consideration when choosing your toddler’s toys.
A learning toy such as building blocks toys encourages creative, open-ended play. Children will play by themselves as well as in a group. Children of various ages can plan, create and build structures of varying degrees of difficulty and learn to work together for hours of learning fun.
Giant sized blocks such as ImagiBRICKS are safe toy blocks because they are too large to get swallowed if there are younger children in the home. Children tend to like to stand on their giant blocks and these blocks are guaranteed crush proof. There are images of me standing on the blocks on our website.
Another reason cardboard building blocks are a perfect toddler learning toy is that they are lightweight and can easily be carried about and can be stacked as high as a toddler can reach. When the blocks fall or get knocked down (as they most assuredly will) there are no sharp edges to hurt your children.
Children will gain muscle strength while playing with their blocks and as they build structures they will learn coordination as they learn to walk around their structures and not knock them down.
There are no better toys for toddlers as ImagiBRICKS, the toys your grandparents played with.
Both you and your toddler will have fun playing together. Play releases your toddler’s energy in a positive manner and may help your stress level decrease when you play open ended games and don’t have to say “no”.
One idea is to do some simple Yoga exercises. If you know any yoga poses, you will find that toddlers can catch on quickly. Toddlers enjoy imitating anything. Do the simple animal poses, such as monkey, elephant or down dog. Then make up your own silly poses.
These games will also offer you teaching opportunities about the animals and their habits. And if you have more time have a simple animal theme craft handy.
The elephant is a highly intelligent mammal. The African elephant is the largest land animal. During these activities children can learn some basic facts about this amazing mammal. http://www.first-school.ws/activities/shapes/animals/elephantshapes.htm
Your toddler will love playing with a Safari Stacking Blocks set which includes many animals (including a large elephant) and your child will love imitating and learning more about all of the safari animals. These wooden kids toys are excellent toddler learning toys for kids two and up. Available online at All I Can Imagine.
A couple of years ago my church performed this piece in it’s Easter Musical. I wanted to share this powerful message with my readers. At the bottom of the lyrics are two You Tube links I found and hope you will listen to them as you read the words below.
He left a throne in heaven to come to Bethlehem
And I will not forget the way
He loved me even then
And everywhere He traveled
He spoke with words of love
That said He’d go to any distance
To show what I was worthy of
And when at last the dusty road
Had turned to Calvary
He picked up a rugged burden
So that one day I would see
Chorus
He loved me with a cross
He loved me with a cross
In answer to the call of love
He loved me with a cross
And I could not imagine what
Loving me would cost
My Jesus went to Calvary
And loved me with a cross
He knew from the beginning
The price He’d have to pay
For my heart had gone so far beyond
What other loves forgave
I wasn’t on that hillside
To see Him on the tree
But as my guilt was placed upon Him
I know that somehow He saw me
Chorus
And I would be a sinner still
Enslaved by all my sin
If it hadn’t been for Jesus
And the way He loved me still
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGSQjY0vuTo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnHhOOm434c&feature=related
Want a unique toy for your child’s Easter basket? Our three chicks wood puzzle will put a smile on your child’s face and be her/his favorite Easter toy this year!
These delightful chicks are made from splinter-proof hardwood and painted with non-toxic paints. Each chick is different and consists of two pieces. This 3d wooden puzzle is geared for children 3 and up.
Our wood puzzles have chunky pieces that children can easily grasp but because of the small pieces there is a choking hazard warning and this 3d wooden puzzle is not for children under three.
In stock and available from our website, All I Can Imagine.
God, it’s good to be loved by You!
The breathtaking knowledge
Of Your life-giving love
Rings chimes in my tremulous heart.
It fashions eternal declarations
Out of unsettled questions.
It creates a majestic life symphony
From a solitary note.
God, it’s good to be loved by you!
Psalm 89:1
I will sing of the Lord’s great love forever; with my mouth I will make your faithfulness known through all generations.
Nope, only in the Alsace region, which borders Germany, does the bunny venture into the garden. In the rest of the France it is a winged bell that does the delivery.
Many centuries ago the Catholic authorities ordered that church bells fall silent between the Thursday before Easter and Easter itself. Children are told that that the bells have flown to Rome to see the Pope and gather candy, returning on Sunday morning to drop chocolate chickens, bunnies, and eggs from the sky.
Like many places in the world, eggs are an important part of Easter in France. It is said that eggs are symbolic of the return to plenty after the hardship of Lent. Many families organize an Easter egg hunt in the garden and afterwards the children will roll their eggs down a slope to see whose is the fastest.
Adding an Easter bunny to your child’s Easter basket is a great idea! See all our plush stuffed animals on our website and order early!
Easter celebration in Mexico is a fusion of Christian rituals and native Indian traditions. In the days of imperialism, the Christian missionaries as a part of their effort to convert non- Christian Indians to Christianity, allowed indigenous people to blend their customs with Easter rites, and many of these customs appear in passion plays. But in the face of a cultural onslaught from American media vehicles, many of Mexico’s age-old traditions are falling out of favor in large cities such as Guadalajara.
Easter in Mexico is a little different from the rest of the world. In Mexico, it is a combination of Semana Santa (Holy Week – Palm Sunday to Easter Saturday) and Pascua (Resurrection Sunday until the following Saturday). On Palm Sunday people use elaborately woven palms. Weavers ply their craft outside churches, and worshipers follow the priest into church with the woven fronds. Later, those palms are traditionally hung on the doors of Mexican homes to ward off evil.
Adding an Easter bunny to your child’s Easter basket is a great idea! See all our stuffed animals on our website and order early!
Yes, Easter Bells are rung in France and Italy throughout the year but they are not rung on the Thursday before good Friday. They are silent as way to remember the death of Jesus. They are then rung on Easter Sunday as way of telling people Jesus is alive again.
Flying Bells
Cloche volant or Flying Bells are another important part of the Easter traditions of France. French Catholics believe that on Good Friday, all the church bells in France fly to the Vatican in Rome, carrying with them the misery and grief of those who mourn Jesus’ crucifixion on that day. These flying bells return on Easter Sunday morning and bring with them lots of chocolate and eggs. In keeping with the tradition, French church bells do not ring from Good Friday to Easter morning.
Thinking of Easter – if you want a cute bunny to add to your child’s Easter basket see our line of stuffed toy animals on our website.
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!
We have added a group of three Gibbon’s to our collection of plush stuffed animals. These Gibbon’s are posable plush toys for kids of all ages.
You will love the large 42” Papa Mango as well as the 18 “and 12.5” Baby Mango. As with all our stuffed toys the Gibbon’s are quality, safe hand-sewn plush toys for your young children.
Gibbons are rare, small, slender, long-armed, tree-dwelling apes. These very acrobatic primates live in Southeast Asia. Gibbons are arboreal; they spend most of their lives in trees.
Gibbons have senses very similar to ours, including hearing, sight (including color vision), smell, taste, and touch.
Gibbons are omnivores (eating plants and meat). They forage for food in the forests during the day, eating fruit (which constitutes about 75% of their diet), leaves, flowers, seeds, tree bark, and tender plant shoots. They also eat insects, spiders, bird eggs, and small birds.
Gibbons drink water, often by dipping a furry hand into the water or rubbing a hand on wet leaves, and then slurping up the water from their fur. Gibbons sometimes do this while dangling above the water from a thin tree branch.
More information about this fascinating rainforest animal is available at: http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/apes/gibbon/.
See our website for more posable plush stuffed animals.