Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school Lets talk about toys :)

DD loves the HABA blocks but she's quite a bit younger than your daughter. Maybe she'd be interested in something like this. I have to admit, I'm already drooling over it but DD is too young and would probably try to eat the small parts...

Imaginarium railroad is the off-brand of the wooden Thomas Railroad sets. Most of what we own are Imaginarium because we're cheap and refused to pay that much for track! They are sold at Toys R Us. I agree with Shari, wooden trains and tracks have been a great purchase! My boys still play with their trains *daily*- DS7 has been playing with them since he was maybe 18mo, DS5 since even younger. I have never regretted buying them.

Wow, thanks HABA seems to have nice looking blocks and cool games. I can't wait when we can start to play games with DD. She is not quite there yet.



Do the imaginarium pieces fit perfectly with Thomas pieces? Are they all wood? I'm asking as I heard that ikea rail road fits well with Thomas too and was disappointed to notice that although it kind of fits, often the pieces don't align perfectly and the battery powered trains won't work I would love to find some cheaper tracks than Thomas.

Quadrilla marble toy is excellent, if a little pricey. It's a real wood marble run, very stable, and each color of block has a specific purpose. Once you figure out the system, you can build some wonderful complex towers for the marbles to run down.

We didn't get it for DS until he was 3, due to the small marbles, but he'd been begging for it for at least 6 months prior to that. He'd seen one set up at a toy store and fell in love with it.

I have a feeling that the Rokenbok (sp?) system is going to be next on his list, so I guess we'd better start setting money aside now. :P

I haven't read through all the posts so I might be duplicating.

My daughter is turning 3 this weekend and over the past year have been through a lot of hit and miss items.

One of her favorite toys is MAGFORMERS. She loves them but be warned: they are recommended for children 5+ in age. So if your child is the type to put toys in their mouth this is not the toy for them b/c they have magnets in them.

Of course trains and cars. She actually loves remote control cars and my DH loves them too so he has a fancy one that she loves to play side by side with Daddy.

Really beyond that we found that she really loves her books, stuffed animals, craft projects and the mighty computer.

I also bought an IKEA table for DD but painted the top with chalkboard. She loves it.

Oooowww ... I second the Quadrilla marble toy. We haven't bought it for DD but every time we go to the toy store she makes a bee line for it. However, again, if the child tends to put things in his/her mouth, little marbles would not be wise.

Hi,

My DS is 26 months,I have a few more things to add to the list of possible toys.

I haven't seen playdoh mentioned, Playdoh is one of those lasting and inexpensive toys for us, with nearly daily usage. DS can't make intricate shapes but makes "pancakes", "beans" etc which he feeds to his dolls, and together we make more advanced stuff.

A older-child or adult-level photographic guide with an index, to whatever interest the child has (in our case birds). We also have a children's dictionary that he likes to look at.

Also this may seem a bit premature but we got him a CD player for kids (Sony model ZS-E5) for his 2 year birthday and its not too hard to use independently, he loves it, is gentle with it and has a few CDs of children's songs he plays.

We have tinker toys (Tinker Toys are sticks and connectors to create structures, one can create large things quickly which is nice compared to lego for example), DS enjoys them but currently needs an adult to help make anything very big (can't press hard enough to make the pieces stay together well), so finds it a little frustrating still.

Just recently got a dollhouse and that has been excellent.

I second the train table idea, we got ours used on craigslist and it came with a huge bin of track and structures. If one doesn't want to do the consumer thing and buy a actual train table one can just dedicate a coffee table height table to be a play table, draw on some roads with washable marker (or with masking type tape), add some toy vehicles, make broccoli trees, a house from a box, etc.

I do find our house cluttered and sometimes think to get rid of a lot of unused items, but like you I find if I put it away and bring it out again it is novel and interesting for a rainy day.

Oh, one last thing, DS enjoys matching games so we have a dinosaur "matching game" -- these types of games are usually rated 3 and up for no good reason. Sometimes called "Memory" and available in a range for a range of interests. Ours gets probably every 2nd day use for the last few months. The GoodNight Moon game is similar.

Polly

Quick question on lacing beads, is there any particular brand anyone likes to start with? The ones I've seen look tricky for little fingers, were more like small bead necklaces?

Polly

Oh, that's a good idea! DD keeps trying to figure out how to use our DVD player or CD player to turn on her music. I'd love to redirect her to something that can't be so easily destroyed.

Also, I had a question in general... for parents of older children, when was small parts no longer a concern for a chocking hazard for you? Did you find that your kids were pretty on track with that or did they stop mouthing objects earlier on?

The lacing beads we have are great, but I don't find them anymore on the manufacturer's site -
www.hearthsong.com
Jumbo Rainbow Lacing Beads.

http://www.hearthsong.com/sitemap/allproducts.asp

They do have jumbo lacing beads, but ours were 'nicer' shapes, imo: Spheres, Cylinders, Cones, Prisms. And you got more than 9 beads. 9 beads just doesn't seem like enough to keep a kid interested for too long...

But perhaps someone on ebay has an old set for sale.