New Discovery Toys products for fall-infants

Me and the kids have been enjoying the treasures in our new product kit, aka some of Discovery Toys newest additions.

Here’s what we’ve sampled so far, from the infant products:

Adam (5 months): Baby Moves Shaker Weights

The rattle design encourages baby to use both hands to build motor skills by grasping, lifting, pushing, pulling, rolling and shaking. Adam is just learning to reach out and grab objects and these colorful weights seem to draw his attention. He’s not doing curls with them yet, but he does pull them to him, one at a time, to give them a taste.  They’re machine-washable, too! He especially likes the crinkled fabric sound.

Cost: $18.50 

Baby Moves Lullaby Blankie

This soft blanket has a teether, satin corners, a applique moon and a crinkle sun. I attach it with the Boomerings to his car seat strap so he has a little softness to play with in the car and during a stroll. Also machine-washable, a very important quality for a baby toy!

Cost: $10

Baby Moves Wiggle, Jingle & Roll

Lots of fun in this piece.  I hang it from his activity center and he keeps busy playing with it. He’s just only started to explore this piece, pulling at the flaps. Not quite pulling the handle for the wiggle vibration yet but then again, he’s only 5 months and it’s really geared toward 6 months through toddler.

Cost: $20

The Baby Moves Complete Gift Set, which  includes these a Baby Moves Book Collection (“Touch & Tickle, “Calm & Soothe and “Wiggle & Move”) is $60. The Baby Moves Lullaby Set, which inlcudes the Lullaby Blankie and the Calm & Soothe book,  is $15.



Other new infant products, which we have not played with yet:

Rattle & Roll

Animal Lullabies Book & CD

gLove Story Puppet

To learn more about Discovery Toys products, or to order, visit my website:

Caterpillar Shape Sorter

Today, while Zachary and Adam napped, Jadon and I played with the Caterpillar Shape Sorter.

The puzzle has 13 pieces and one base; the pieces are different colors and shapes.

Jadon, who turned 2 last month, picked up on it right away, picking two of the matching colors and tried to piece them together before putting them in the base. I showed him how he could do one at a time and he filled the puzzle piece by piece and  picked the correct geometric shape for each one. There are four sets of puzzle frames and each frame outlines a different shape: a square, circle, cross and triangle. They’re all different colors and each has a picture on it.

After he completed the puzzle, he added the Jadon action that he adds to most of the games – he threw the pieces across the room piece by piece. And then, set by set, he retrieved them. For instance, he found the two blue pieces with red dots then put them in one at a time. Then he’d say, “Where’s the circle?” and then run around the room to find it and place it in the middle. Then he’d find the next set. He was also able to name the four designs on the shape: apple, butterfly, flower and sun. He did the throw and retrieve about four times before he was finished and then, when it was time to clean up, he put all the pieces in and then the base then saw it wouldn’t fit so he dumped them all out and tried again. After a couple of tries, he attempted to close the box without the base. I told him that the base goes in the box, too, but he refused it and went to put the box on the shelf.

Besides pointing out the different colors and shapes, we also counted to five, as there are five parts of the caterpillar when it’s all together.

Skills for Caterpillar Shape Sorter (2 years to preschool):

•  Promotes counting, sorting, recognizing shapes and matching parts-to-whole
• Identify colors, patterns and pictures of object found in nature
• Mix and match basic geometric shapes
• Fit puzzle pieces into spaces
• Develop hand-eye coordination, early math skills and an understanding of spatial relationships 

Cost: $15

To find out more or to order, visit my website.

September clearance sale

As Discovery Toys launches its spring line, they’re clearing out several products during its Going Going Gone sale. Now’s a good time to stock up on gifts you’ll need for the next few months.

Busy Bugs, Giant Pegboard, My Busy Day, Bright Builders, Bright Builders Plus, Jawbones, Play to be Safe, The Living Room, Bathtime Bugs, What Insect Am I? What Ocean Creature Am I? What Dinosaur Am I? Playful Letters, Playful Numbers and Shapes, Spring & Catch, Make it Fun Gift Kit, Craft Party Kit, Two Hydroblasts

See more here:  Going going gone

To order, click here:

Sounds like learning

Before school started, I’d turn this CD on in the kitchen while the boys were eating lunch. These are the songs that made the most impact:

“I Love You So Much” – Very cute to hear Zachary walking around the house singing this.

“Apple Apple a a a” – This song teaches the sounds the letters make and both kids sing along. The CD also comes with a color chart of this song and Zachary likes to point at the pictures and letters while he sings along. Jadon even sings parts of it when the CD isn’t playing, like when he’s playing with his cars.

“Counting by 10s” – Only after a couple listens, Zachary learned how to count by 10s and he impressed his grandpa just the other day by easily doing this.

Skills for “Sounds Like Learning” (birth to kindergarten):

• Introduces phonemic training, opposites, manners, simple Spanish, counting skills and more
• Encourage family singalongs and beginning reading skills
• Builds alphabet awareness and teaches letter sounds
• Provides pleasant auditory stimulation for early language development

Cost: $15

To find out more, listen to a sample or to order, visit my website.

Smart packaging

When I opened my first box of Discovery Toys, I was surprised to see what I thought was styrofoam packaging since it didn’t seem to fit with being a child-are-our-future kind of company.

But then I saw the little note on the box that comforted me:

“The contents in this package are protected with Pelaspan-Pac Natural (100 percent biodegradable). Like most protective packaging, it is designed to ‘cushion your purchase’ so it arrives safely. But Pelaspan-Pac Natural does one thing differently … (it) dissolves in water. At Discover Toys, we are concerned about building a brighter future for children and helping families live a healthier, happier life.”

Of course I had to try it; I took a piece and ran it under water in the bathroom sink. And it dissolved in my fingers. Pretty cool!

Playful Patterns: layers of learning

Zachary’s nickname for Playful Patterns is “Shapes.”

The toy has 132 geometric shapes made of  different colors of slip-proof foam  and 34 progressively challenging designs on 6″ x 6″ cards. Discovery Toys has a phrase “layers of learning” that refers to its products and this one is a good example. Here are the ways my toy testers play with Playful Patterns: 

Although the game has a safety warning that it’s a safety hazard for children age 3 and younger, it’s often difficult to keep the younger sibling away from such a colorful toy. I try to limit it for when Jadon is otherwise occupied or napping but that doesn’t last very long so I let Jadon, who turns 2 next week, play with it but only with very close supervision. He doesn’t often put things in his mouth anymore, but you never know.

Since the cards vary in levels of difficulty – starting from outline pictures of the different shapes – both kids put the shapes on the right places on the cards.

Zachary has learned that you can make a circle from four quarter circles or two half circles. When he was eating crackers as a snack the other day, he put two of the crackers next to each other and said, “Mommy, two squares make a rectangle, right?”

Together, we made figures of The Wiggles; four figures in red, blue, purple and yellow, using the circles as their heads, rectangles for the body, etc. and they helped me find the different colors and shapes that I was looking for.

Although the clean-up process may seem daunting because there are so many pieces, we’ve made games out of it. Jadon especially enjoys this part since he’s really into learning his colors right now. One game is that I assign each of us a color and we pick up all the shapes of that color. Another game is that we name the color as we put each piece away. And the third, that one of the kids created, was to put the piece away with the sound effect of an airplane nosediving into the box.

Skills for Playful Patterns (4 years to primary school):

•  Sort, match, count and identify colors and shapes
• Explore positional concepts: next to, near, opposite, middle, edges
• Practice visual perception skills by observing and copying geometric patterns from cards and by creating original designs
• Practice fine motor dexterity
• Strengthen problem-solving skills
• Develop understanding of spatial relationships.

Activities for Playful Patterns:

• Trace the designs or individual shapes onto paper to color and decorate or create your own figures or designs
• Use it as a memory exercise, creating the designs without the card
• Put the pieces in a bag and have players identify the pieces by touch

Cost: $22.50

To find out more or to order, visit my website.

Flip Flop Faces Emotions in Motion

Flip Flop Faces Emotions in Motion – or as Zachary calls it, “the feelings game” – consists of six brightly colored bowls, each with a printed face expressing an emotion  on the bottom, and a beanbag with a corresponding color with the emotion ‘s name written on it.

I put the bowls on the coffee table so all the faces were visible and  asked Zachary, who turns 4 this month, to identify the emotions. He recognized happy, sad and angry but wasn’t sure about scared, surprised or silly. I showed him the matching bean bags but he was more interested in the faces. Some of the ways he and Jadon played with them:

They put them on their heads as hats.

Jadon, who turns 2 this month, threw them across the room.

Zachary identified them by color and emotion; Jadon identified them by color (Zachary named the color, Jadon could point out the color when I named them and repeated the names of the colors after I said them).

We laid the bowls face-up on the table and I’d ask Zachary how he feels in different scenarios: “How do you feel when Jadon takes your toys?” He pointed to the red one (angry). “How do you feel when Grandpa Bob comes to our house?” He pointed to the orange one (happy – good thing as Grandpa Bob was visiting and sitting right there on the couch!).

And my favorite way Zachary played with them: he’d hold up a bowl and act out the emotion and ask me to do the same.  Then Jadon would copy him – not by acting out the emotion, but by holding the bowl in front of his face.Zachary really enjoyed this toy – throughout the day and following days, he’d ask for “The feelings game.” One afternoon he told me, “I feel like the blue one” (sad) because something had happened had made him sad.

Skills for Flip Flop Faces (ages 4 and older)

• Exploring skills and concepts related to feelings and emotions
• Learning to relate to self and others
• Reviewing colors and strengthening number sense
• Acquiring social skills related to game-playing
• Developing oral language expression
• Developing “see and say’ vocabulary related to emotions
• Family fun
• Backyard play or rainy-day amusement
• Party entertainment

Activities for Flip Flop Faces

• Color and counting play
• Emotions in motion
• Emotional math games (involves tossing the bean bags into the bowls and keeping score)

Cost: $22.50

To find out more or to order, visit my website.

Time to play – Giant Pegboard

Toys in the new educational consultant kit – all this for $89 (plus tax and s&h)

Even though the kids were having fun with the box – jumping off of it, coloring it with markers and using it as  a drum – I was eager to see their reactions to the toys. So on a Sunday morning when the baby was sleeping and my oldest son was out with my husband, I opened the box and put them all out on the coffee table. Hard to believe all of these toys only cost $89 (plus tax and s&h).

Jadon, nearly 2, picked out the Giant Pegboard to play with first. I set it out on the table and he was so excited to play with it. He started stacking the pieces – the first tower was nine pieces high. Then he pointed at one and wanted me to name the colors.

Then he discovered the pegs with little balls inside and shook them, laughing and jumping around the room. Then he threw them across the room. After he returned to the pegboard, he added another piece to the tall tower and then knocked the tower down. Then he knocked the pegboard down and all the pieces on the floor. He didn’t lose interest though; after he threw the pegs around for a minute or so, he returned the pegboard to the table and started to retrieve the pieces and put them in the holes.

To help with the clean-up, I asked him to find them by  colors and shapes. “Where’s an orange piece?” “Where’s the blue triangle?” He enjoyed that, lunging after the appropriate pieces, sometimes picking up a piece of his own and shouting, “Blue!” “Triangle!” He’s just started learning his colors and shapes so  it’s a fun game for him.

As he retrieved the pieces, he put them back in the pegboard, only stacking the star-shaped pieces with little balls. Because of the big throw-around-the-room, I wanted to make sure we had all the pieces so I counted them out loud. There were only 23, instead of the 25 we started with. So I looked around the room and when I spotted them, said “There’s one!” and Jadon ran  over to return it to the pegboard. Then he started counting them (“2, 3, 2, 3, 2, 3” – he hasn’t actually learned to count yet!). He really enjoyed the pegs with small balls. He wanted me to count with him as he took them off and stacked them back up.

Initially, he played with the Giant Pegboard for nearly a half hour.  After I put it back in the box, he wanted it back out and started playing with it again.

When Zachary (nearly 4) got home, the pegboard was still on the coffee table. His first activity was to take all the pegs and stack them up as high as he could until it crashed down. He started with all the circles then stacked them up according to shape. Then Jadon screamed that it’s “Mine!” and started taking the pegs. I’ll have to record Zachary’s playing activity at another time…

Each Discovery Toy comes with a booklet for parents that explains the skills a child learns with the toy. There are also activity suggestions.

Skills for Giant Pegboard (Ages 19 months-preschool)

• Beginning to manipulate objects, develop small-muscle coordination
• Stack pegs, develop number skills and awareness
• By knocking over the pegs, they learn cause and effect

Activities for Giant Pegboard

• Sorting colors
• Counting
• Designing patterns
• Building cities
• Jumping pegs
• Memory game
• Stretching rubber bands on the posts on the back of the pegboard
• Pluck the rubber bands to make music
• Math visualization

Cost: $18.50 (on sale for $14.50 until Aug. 15)

To find out more or to order, visit my website.

Got the big box

The starter kit arrived today and it’s sitting in the living room. I haven’t had a chance to open it yet because the kids were home all day and I want to open it when they’re at camp so I can introduce one toy at a time to get their reactions. But Zachary was sure happy to see it, even though he had no idea what was inside.

“Oh look, a drum!” he said, and he crouched down in front of it and started banging on top.

Becoming a Discovery Toys educational consultant

Today I became a Discovery Toys educational consultant. The toys look amazing and I have my own market research team: Zachary, almost 4; Jadon, almost 2; and Adam, almost 3 months. I paid the initial $35 deposit and I’m just waiting for my starter kit to come in the mail.