Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Holiday gifts post mortem: best toys?

My soon-to-be five year old son's favorites:

The Mousetrap Game (He's into building traps out of everything.)

A combination watch/compass/carabiner

Santa Pez

Kitchen scale from the 1950's. (From the "used stuff" store.)

updating Butter's favorite to the new iPad her uncle (that I'm afraid she will wind up like) sent!

DD7, Galaxy Tablet. She needed a new computer but this seems to be for Angry Birds and video making so far.

Electricity kit and Barbie that can have her hair colored. And yes, the Barbie hair extensions you design on the computer and print out and wear. At least these trends are non-permanent.

Ren

Ren, do you have the link for the Barbie hair extensions? My dds would love that lol!

polarbear

My daughter's favorite is the Cloud b Twilight Constellation Night Light, which she doesn't fall asleep with. She turns it on, grabs her toy space shuttle, and I fly her around her star-lit room on a space odyssey.

I've been having fun with her Trio-blocks gears set, but she can't quite use them herself yet (as I've mentioned before, she's 2.75 and very thin for her age.) She does make requests for me to build.

I have also been impressed by the iPlay build-a-road truck and track set. (Purchased for my 1 year old son to watch.) The trucks are pretty fast, and the track is very easy to put together and modify. It's a flexible track, so any part of it can bend any which way you want.

The Toobeez set is a little harder to put together than I imagined. My children wont be able to successfully make any complicated structures until they are much older... maybe 7? The unexpected difficulty is that the connecting spheres have to be oriented correctly when first inserted for re-connecting to later. If you have it turned the wrong way, you have to re-orient it when it's time to make your third or fourth connection.

13 month old - Plan Toys water blocks (wooden blocks with colored water inside.) She loves looking through them.
Plan Toys wooden fruits and veggies. She cuts them with the wooden "knife" that came with it and they are attached by velcro and make a very satisfying sound when "cut" apart.
Her organic Under the Nile stuffed monkey.

Some big wooden lacing beads were not a hit, yet. She is really into her wooden shapes puzzle at the moment.

Oh, my mom got her a cozy coupe and she likes that, too.

I remember those veggies; big hit here too a few years back. Love the crunchy velcro noises; the only application of velcro I can approve of. On clothing it drives me batty.