Toddler Gift Ideas Under $15

In a slow economy many parents and relatives are looking for high quality gift ideas for their tots that will not break the bank. The Tiny Toy Shop offers a great selection of high quality, high interest toys under $15.00. The Pop-Up Toy is a favorite, classic toy and member of Child Magazine's Toy Hall of Fame is an amusing wooden toys with 4 color peg figures which pop up and down on concealed springs. This child favorite is designed to encourage hand-eye coordination and introduce color awareness. It is recommended for children ages 12 months and up and is only $9.99. Another great choice is any of The Tiny Toy Shop's Bead Maze toys. All of the featured bead mazes are made from rubber wood, an earth-friendly hardwood, made in the USA and are handcrafted/handpainted with child safe paints. This colorful toy provides hours of fun and can be purchased for only $12.99!

Below are some of the great toys we offer all under $15.00! Click on the picture to find out more information about the product and stay tuned for more great posts!

Summer Savings!

Yay! We have finally moved to a new host and revamped our site. Take a look at the new face of TheTinyToyShop.com! We have a new boutique feel and are very pleased with the look. There may still be a few bugs that we have yet to work out; if you come across anything that is not functioning properly, please do not hesitate to drop us a line at support@TheTinyToyShop.com.

We have some new products and savings to offer as well! We are now offering FREE shipping on all Retro Pedal Cars in our inventory! This is not a limited time offer, the free shipping will be an ongoing offer. We are also now carrying a much larger selection of children's furniture with much more to come. The Tiny Toy Shop is also happy to announce a much larger and comprehensive collection of wooden games and puzzles. We are also carrying a large selection of wooden train sets compatible with Brio and Thomas sets. Most exciting is our new line of manipulative toys which includes Magnetos from Guidecraft. Magnetos are a perfect gift for children who want to play like the big kids! Magnetos are an Oppenhiem Award winning toy, get yours today!

Recycle for Fun!

I am always looking for ways to reuse items in my home and get my children involved in the act too. The following ideas are things that I have come up with or remember reading about. All of these ideas will help save the environment while adding a little fun to your child's day!

Recycled Easter Grass - This year for Easter, instead of using the traditional plastic Easter grass, I have been saving flyers from the mail in a multitude of different colors. Once I have a decent selection, I will shred the paper and use it to line the Easter baskets this year.
You can also take a variation of this idea which is great for winter months or rainy days: Fill a plastic swimming pool with shredded paper and bury items in the paper for an indoor treasure hunt. You can also put larger pieces of paper in the pool and give your toddler funky scissors to cut up the paper with. Great fun while encouraging growth of those fine motor skills!


Pretend Play Store - Whenever I go to the grocery store, my 3 1/2 year old son insists on bringing his own shopping cart so that he can "help". :) At home, he loves to pretend to cook with his little kitchen and is always looking for things to "buy" for his latest culinary masterpiece. So, instead of throwing out the empty food boxes, I tape the ends shut and stock his pretend market. We even price the items with small stickers so he can "buy" them too!

Spring is in Bloom - Trace a CD on a magazine page and on a piece of cardboard from a cereal box. Glue the magazine paper onto the cardboard, fold it several times as you would to make a paper snowflake. Cut out a petal shape, unfold, and stack with other petals. Use paper fasteners to join the stake to a rolled-magazine-paper stem. (You can also use old greeting cards for this too!)

Mark that Page - Take different colored ribbons and cut into 12 inch strips. Glue buttons on each end of the ribbon and now you a have a one-of-a-kind book mark that can be given as party favors or gifts.

Organize those Ponytail Holders - I use an old ice cube tray in my daughter's dresser drawer to sort and hold her ponytail holders.

If you have any ideas that you would like to share, please comment here!

Happy Crafting!

Decorating for Your Child

Designing the nursery! One of the most exciting times in your pregnancy is decorating the baby's nursery. As you begin this process, it is important to choose the pieces carefully to maximize the use of space and make the room child-centered. Select items that can be used for many years and that can transform. We found this simple tool tool that will help you decide exactly which pieces will fit in your room, enabling you to maximize the flow and function of your nursery or big kid room.

The Virtual Room Organizer is a great tool to allow you to create a room that is perfect for your child. Using this tool is easy, simply select the size of the room you are decorating, then you can drag and drop the furniture pieces into the room, rotating pieces as needed and editing furniture dimensions to match the pieces you are considering.

Now you just need to decide which pieces to add to make the room a perfect fit for your little one!

Here are some of our favorite places to shop for furniture and bedding:
The Land of Nod
Posh Tots
Rosenberry Rooms
Sugarplum Dreams
Sweet Peaches Bedding

Happy Designing!

New Product Offerings Update

Well, as the year began I was searching, as I always am, for new and exciting products to add to our inventory at The Tiny Toy Shop. I reported earlier that The Tiny Toy Shop would be offering products from Orchard Toys, Guidecraft, and Dantoy. The process of loading those products is virtually complete and excited is rising as we know that you will love the new products. Safety is first and foremost in searching for unique, afforadable, educational toys. There is no question that the new toy offerings fit nicely in those three categories. A new post will be made available when the new product lines are officially launched...stay tuned!

My Kids Toys

Author: Rachel Nunez

Toys, like childhood itself, mean different things to different people. To the average European or American parent, a toy serves to keep the young amused and distracted. Now more than ever, with the belief that multiple intelligences can be stimulated in the early years, toy manufacturers are gearing their products towards those than can keep children beguiled, occupied and instructed. For instance, toys should help the child develop his motor skills, and engage him in fantasy and investigative play.

For the child, an ornate piece that to adult eyes is essentially decorative and fixed, or a mechanized object kept as a curiosity can count as a plaything. As a result, experts have classified many objects as being on the borderline between toy and decorative object, between puerile replica and collector's item. Such overlapping cannot be sidestepped nowadays, especially since toy collecting by adults in the United States and some European countries has emerged as a popular form of expertise.

Despite such borderline cases, there is wide consensus among toy historians and collectors on what truly makes a toy, a toy in the strictest sense. Boys have played with foot soldiers and horse soldiers. Girls have always had their precious dolls. Although the earliest of these toys have not survived, these remain true and had been so since the third millennium B.C.

The earliest known dolls were made of various materials such as wood, terra-cotta and fabric. The period after World War II brought novelties in design and an entire new range of plastics.

Mechanical toys became popular as class alignments changed. This fact, coupled with more ingenious manufacturing techniques evolved into fantastic musical automata, animals, and images that utilized clockwork to mimic human movement. The aim for toy makers has been towards movement and the many different methods of inducing it in toys. It has assumed great importance and had become a subject dealt with fully in specialized reference works.

Because of new production techniques, an overwhelming quantity of toys, games and amusements for children had been available by the mid 19th century. German inventiveness pioneered novel and intriguing designs, ranging from simple knickknacks in tin or the softwoods, which were known in Britain as "penny toys", to constructional and educational games that reflected the growing vogue of science in the nursery.

English girls during the reign of reign of Queen Victoria, began to follow the customs of their German and Austrian counterparts by learning about housecraft and baby care. By the turn of the 20th century, it was not unusual to find inexpensive dolls, dolls' houses, and "German kitchens" in middle-class family homes.

Today, the spread of modern production techniques has made additional millions of persons more conscious of toys in respect to their function, design and usefulness, and their many cultural aspects as well. And although refinements in the application of radio, electronics, magnetism, dry-cell batteries, and so on, have revolutionized certain toys, the folktoy has come into its own again in India, China, Central Europe, Japan, Mexico, Russia and Scandinavia, thus balancing mechanized trends with the addition of less complex technical artistry and beauty.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/home-and-family-articles/my-kids-toys-765691.html

Educational Wooden Toys - Why Children Will Love Them

All parents want their children to play and learn in safety, but sitting in front of a television is not the alternative most parents seek. Rather than simply watching a screen and being "spoon-fed" a constant stream of input, children benefit from the use and manipulation of real, tangible educational wooden toys.

Numerous studies have shown viewing excessive television to be deleterious to children's development and many pediatricians suggest minimal TV exposure for toddlers. Physically tangible toys, as opposed to television or computer screens, establish the sense of touch and stimulate neural growth. Further, the child's ability to manipulate his toy as he wishes builds creativity and decision-making skills, as the child is not simply absorbing what is being broadcast over the airwaves.

The dexterity required to play with and manipulate educational toys also stimulates the imagination and builds hand eye coordination. Different educational wooden toys are suitable for different developmental stages; for tots, large, brightly colored objects may suffice, while a five-year old might benefit from the alphabet and numbers painted on wooden blocks.

Another benefit of wooden toys is their relative durability and safety. Plastics can become brittle with age and have a tendency to break into sharp shards, whereas educational wooden toys rarely break up beyond a splinter. Still older children have delighted themselves for years with the ever-popular "Lincoln-Logs" that allows the child to build a variety of miniature log buildings. Many educational toys aimed at teens and preteens build critical lateral thinking and problem solving skills.

The benefit of wooden toys does not lie solely in the use, however. Crafting educational wooden toys is a hobby enjoyed by parent and child alike, while encouraging intrapersonal cooperation and development of basic skills. Wood, a few tools and an imagination are all that is required to make educational wooden toys. They can range from little more than whittled doodads to elaborately carved and painted heirlooms.

Schoolchildren everywhere learn basic woodworking techniques in shop class and, frequently, the object built with these skills is a simple wooden pegboard or similar educational wooden toy. Successful creation of a real object builds confidence in children who are all too often used to success in terms of advancing to the next level of a video game.

In the age of Toys-R-Us, Madison Avenue and high-dollar advertising, companies bombard children with ads proclaiming their toy to be the best. However, no mass-produced plastic figure can compare with a custom, handmade educational wooden toy, nor will the plastic toy likely be passed down from one generation to the next.

Summary:

Although not as prevalent as in the past, educational wooden toys are an important tool in children's development. Many educational toys aimed at teens and preteens build critical lateral thinking and problem solving skills and building educational wooden toys is a hobby enjoyed by parent and child alike, while encouraging intrapersonal cooperation and development of basic skills.

Source: http://www.articlecircle.com/ - Free Articles Directory

About the Author
Brooke Hayles Check Out More Helpful Information About Educational Wooden Toy For FREE! Visit http://www.educationalwoodentoyonline.com/resources/educational-wooden-toys-time-has-not-diminished-their-popularity.html Now!

New Product Offerings

As the new year gets underway we begin to see new products arrive in stores. Well, ours is no different! We will be adding a large new selection of toys and furniture over the next few weeks. One of our product lines are all new and are based and manufactured in England. The products contain no phthalates or PVC and are produced using environmentally friendly processes. Orchard Toys and Dantoy toys will be offered very soon! We will also be adding Fiesta Crafts, also based in the UK, hign quality fabric puppets to our large selection of children's toys. In addition to these great assortment of new product lines, we will also be adding the full line of GuideCraft children's toys and furniture. Look for these new offerings on our site in the coming weeks!