Gift Guide for Babies

Manhattan Toy Skwish Mobile

This colorful wooden mobile engages baby's eyes and brightens up any nursery. Its design is crafted after Manhattan Toy's modern-day classic toy called Skwish. Babies love its atomic-looking structure with brightly colored spheres and rods.

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GBaby Magnets

These chunky oversized magnetic pieces by GBaby are great for developing early motor skills. Babies learn to grasp the shapes as they put them together and pull them apart. The character covers allow for narrative play as the child grows older, and they double as a bath toy. 

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ALEX Toys My Busy Town

This wooden activity center, My Busy Town by ALEX Toys, is perfect for early learning. Babies sit or stand next to the box to open doors, navigate mazes and spin an abacus. Each side is adorned with something engaging and educational. Oh, and it looks great in a playroom!

Kleynimals

These "clean keys" for babies known as Kleynimals were developed by a Maryland mother. They look and feel just like real keys to distract babies from grabbing yours. They feature rounded edges, playful characters and are made from dishwasher-safe, food-grade stainless steel. 

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Twilight Turtle

Twilight Turtles by Cloud B project the constellations of the night sky onto a child's ceiling. It's a soothing night light and a learning activity in one. When children are younger, you can adjust the color of the light to whatever the child finds most soothing, and when they're older it is a lesson in Astronomy. It is a modern-day classic, and a must-have for any nursery.

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Sophie the Giraffe

This classic French teething toy, Sophie the Giraffe, has been delighting babies worldwide for over fifty years. She is made in France from a natural rubber and is painted with food-quality dyes. They love her unique shape to teethe hard-to-reach back molars.  

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Kathe Kruse

Kathe Kruse products have been handmade in Europe for over one hundred years. Each piece is artfully crafted by skilled seamstresses and are specially designed to be soft, safe and sanitary. Kathe Kruse baby products are machine washable.   

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HABA Discoverer's Meadow Play Mat

This soft tummy mat is perfect for early play. Babies explore the meadow by feeling different textures, gazing at different colors and patterns and playing with the different animals. Its sophistocated design keeps it relevant as a play environment for older children as well. 

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IQ Baby Knock Knock Blocks

The beautiful soft blocks Knock Knock Blocks by IQ Baby are purposefully designed with high contrast patterns and brightly colored images to engage baby's visual senses. Each piece features differently textured fabrics, interactive doors and windows to explore. Great for early stacking to encourage gross motor development. 

HABA Wooden Clutching & Teething Toys 

HABA's clutching and teething toys are made of solid beech wood and colored with vegetable-based water dyes. They are buffed to a nice sheen, so no chemicals are used in giving the wood its beautiful finish. All of HABA's wooden products are responsibly manufactured in Germany.

Play Matters: Use Your Hands

Our hands are one of the main ways we interact with the world. So it's important we take good care of them. At aMuse, we see a lot of Physical Therapists (PT’s) who buy therapy toys to use with their patients. Play, for both kids and adults, is a great way to rehabilitate or develop lost or lagging fine motor skills. Here is a list of great hand dexterity toys that are both fun and therapeutic for people of all ages.

Crazy Aaron's Thinking Putty is often used by arthritics to exercise stiff and painful joints. Many times people with arthritis avoid using these pained joints, but that often makes the problem worse. Casually playing with the putty at work, while reading or watching TV is a great way to help increase hand strength, loosen bad joints and get some hand exercise while not in the PT’s office.

It's important to develop hand strength in children for various reasons. Strong, precise fingers are needed for playing instruments, building complex structures and other precision tasks. Crazy Aaron's Thinking Putty also makes a great toy for traveling with children because of its easy portability.

Buckyballs are great for increasing finger dexterity. Manipulating the small, magnetic spheres requires patience, finger strength and precision. Many use Buckyballs as a stress ball to increase overall hand strength.

Eni Puzzles are a work out for both your hands and brain. To solve the Eni Puzzle you must turn the sphere and shift the colored pieces until you achieve the desired color pattern. The pieces will only shift when it's precisely lined up. There are many open-ended solutions.

For younger players, Eni Puzzles make great fidget toys that give kids a great hand workout. Their portable size makes them excellent for traveling with children.

Magnetic Mighty Mind is not just great for building finger dexterity and practicing precision, it's also great for building logic. This tin filled with magnetic shapes of different colors is great for travel and makes a perfect guided, independent activity.

Pirate's Blast requires both hand strength and fine motor skill. Players must squeeze the bellows with force to project the wooden ball out of the cannon and to sail their ships across the sea. The finger dexterity required to load the cannon with the wooden ball is great practice for hands as well. The game's concept is so appealing to children, they focus and practice until their skill levels improve through play.  

My Busy Town by ALEX Toys keeps even tiny hands working hard. This stand alone wooden cube is ornately decorated with bright colors and patterns that visually stimulate young eyes. Each side of the large cube has a fun activity. It features a spiraling abacus, doors that open and close, shapes to move and a traditional abacus. Because of its height, it also encourages younger ones to get up and stand. It is, in our opinion, one of the greatest developmental toys both physically and cognitively for younger children.

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Stuff Kids Love: Tub Time

In our new series Stuff Kids Love we explore the simple joys of children. We discuss why they love what they love, what they gain from their play and how you can best use the stuff they love to guide them in purposeful play. This week we focus on tub time.

Tub time, though tons of fun, can be rough because many kids bathe right before bed time. The trick is to keep them entertained long enough so you can soap them up, wash them off and tuck them in. Luckily, there are a lot of productive activities that can help make bath time fun, easy and clean.

You can do many fun things in the tub that you can’t do on dry land. You can splash and get soapy, write on walls and squirt water. You can also take the normal everyday toys and make them even more fun! For example, take a marble run and make it waterproof, and voila! Waterblocks.

Waterblocks by Just Think Toys are a marble run for the bath. Just stick the blocks to the side of the tub wall and watch the marble roll! It’s a great exercise in physics as you must figure out how to get the ball to stay on the track. Kids also crave repetitive play, and marble runs — both in and out of the tub — satisfy that craving.

You can practice counting, spelling and motor skill refinement in the tub as well. ALEX Toys developed a wonderful line of bath products that make bath time a learning experience. Tub stickers are great for letter recognition, word building and exercising those little finger muscles.

ALEX’s line of bathtub writing utensils are great for increasing finger dexterity and hand strength. To use ALEX’s Tub Writers, children must squeeze the colored soap tubes nice and hard to draw on the tub walls. They think they’re 'just playing,' but secretly they’re giving their hands a great workout. Strong hands are helpful for both kids and adults to perform precision tasks like building, crafting or manipulating objects. They’re little hands, after all, are a primary way they physically interact with the world around them.

The bathtub crayons are a unique opportunity to practice proper grip when writing. Some kids dislike sitting and practicing good penmanship. If you introduce writing in a different setting, it could get them to practice through play.

Check back Friday for our weekly Game University post. We're featuring a versatile water game that's great for early childhood development.

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Stuff Kids Love: Storytelling

In our new series, Stuff Kids Love we explore simple joys of children. This week we’re focusing on storytelling — because everyone loves a good story!

Children have great imaginations and their ability to think creatively is a skill that should be encouraged through purposeful play. Kids love storytelling, whether being read to, retelling things they’ve experienced or making up things off the top of their head. With stories, kids travel to distant lands, meet bizarre creatures, develop empathy towards others and learn important life lessons. Stories are fundamental in the healthy development and socialization of all children.

You don’t always need books to tell a good story; puppets, costumes and other pretend-play toys are great catalysts for a good tale as well. Melissa & Doug makes a brilliant puppet theater and puppets that allow for endless storytelling fun.

Or, if you like to create things from the very beginning, try one of ALEX toys’ paper bag puppet or marionette kits. These are great crafts that you can use even after you’ve completed the project.

Stories are also great for expanding vocabulary, creating complex narratives, learning how to articulate ideas and explore relationships and feelings. Writing a journal is a healthy way for kids to express themselves as well as practice spelling and penmanship; skills that are often neglected these days with spellcheck and the prevalence of computers.

It’s fun to make your own journals and books from scratch. Ellen and Julia Lupton have a great section in their book D.I.Y. Kids that teaches you simple binding techniques. If you’re really ambitious you could even make a book using your own recycled paper.

ALEX’s Paper Factory teaches you everything you need to know about hand-making your paper. It makes a great ‘indoorsy’ project especially during the colder or more rainy months of the year. After you’ve made a few books of your own, you could even have your own pretend-play library!

The rest of the week we'll be focusing on great story-related fun for everyone. So check back often and don't forget to tell your friends...

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Top Stocking Stuffers for Under $10

While Santa has been making his list and checking it twice - we have been too. Here is our list of Top Stocking Stuffers for under 10 dollars. Hope it helps!

1. Rory's Story Cubes

Roll the story cubes for infinite inspiration! Simply roll the 9 story cubes and begin with the image that catches your eye first. Start each tale with, "once upon a time..." and then let your imagination run wild. Great for solitary play or to use with others! 

2. Shrinky Dinks

Shrinky Dinks have been and always will be awesome. Just color the special Shrinky Dink paper and stick it in the oven or microwave. Watch them shrink into much smaller, thick, plastic charms that you can use as jewelery, attach to magnets or just to keep around because they're cool. 

3. Hexbug Nano

Kids love bugs; parents don't. Hexbug Nanos are the best of both worlds. They're bugs, but they're not disgusting! Kids love to watch them scurry around, just like real bugs. Watch them run into walls, change direction, and flip themselves over if they get stuck on their backs.

4. Ugly Doll Clips

Ugly Doll clips add gobs of character to anything you clip them to. Hang them from your belt loops, your back pack, your keys - or anything else for that matter! They make great collections because each Ugly comes complete with their own stories explaining their quirky, unique personalities.

5. Holiday Smencils

Made from recycled newpapers and stored in biodegradable Eco-corn tubes, Smencils are a huge hit with school kids and adults alike. Memory is closely linked with the olfactory sensory system, so they'll be sure to remember the warmth of the holidays when they take a whiff while writing.

6. Jacob's Ladder

Jacob's Ladder is the classic optical illusion toy that's been around for ages. Hold the top block and flip it over to watch the other blocks click and clack and appear to cascade downward. It's been delighting children and adults for centuries!

7. Tangle

This awesome sensory toy is great for twisting, snapping and tangling together. Tangles come in different colors, sizes and textures, which are sure to keep any fidgety hands busy.

8. ALEX Undercover Rearview Spy Glasses

Every good spy needs to be able to see what's going on behind them. Help your kid be a good spy by putting these in their stocking. They're a guaranteed win.

9. Yomega Yo-Yo

Tricks are great. Yomega yo-yos are great for learning all kinds of tricks. Many of them have metal bearings, which allow for maximum spinning speed.

10. Splashimals

We LOVE splashimals. They are floating playing cards that double as stickers for bathtub walls. Play them as a matching game, create your own weird animal combos or use them as a learning tool for animal and word recognition. They also make for great fun at the beach or in the pool!

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