Top Toys: Customer Picks

Here is a list of top toys we've compiled from your suggestions over the past few months. Let us know if we've missed one of your favorites!

1. Mozart Magic Cube

Kids love buttons and instant feedback. The Mozart Magic Cube entertains a wide range of ages. Press the buttons to hear a Mozart piece play. You can add and subtract the instruments you hear by continuing to press any of the large buttons on any side of the cube. The lights and sounds are engaging, and it's a great way for a child to dissect the instrumentation of one of history's greatest composers.  

2. Green Toys Stacker

This suggestion for the Green Toys Stacker comes from aMuse mom, Amy. Her daughter, Maddie, enjoys stacking the cups in both directions and loves the fact that they can double as pretend-play tea cups. Some of our customers even take their stackers to the beach and use them as sand molds. All-ages, Eco-friendly fun!

3. Jishaku

Jishaku, Japanese for magnet, is a favorite game among older kids. Be the first to strategically place all of your magnets in the playing board, and you win the game! Easier said than done, as the magnets are super powerful. 

4. Wedgits

Wedgits are great for any age. They will truly grow with your child over the years. This alternative building block set requires an inner structure, which adds an interesting twist to stacking. Wee Wedgits are great for stacking and playing in the bath tub, and classic wedgits are great for creative, open-ended play. For a more guided play for older children, give them a set of design cards to build their puzzle skills. Brilliant!

5. Baby Geomags

Geomags are a magnetic toy for young children. Their over-sized pieces are easy for small hands to hold onto, and their animal designs are great for character play. Fun for in the tub, too!

6. Green Toys Tea Set

For healthy playtime fun that is eco-friendly too, this tea set is made in the USA from recycled milk jugs. Purposeful design that is dishwasher safe.  

7. Doodle Track Car

Create the ultimate course for your Doodle Track Car!  This little sports car will follow the twists and turns on a track that you design with any black crayon or marker. 

8. Magnatiles

Magnatiles magnetic building sets foster patterning, shape recognition and three-dimensional thinking while developing building and fine motor skills. Kids explore basic math, science and creative concepts with this brilliant open-ended toy.

9. Sophie the Giraffe

This classic French teething toy named Sophie the Giraffe has been delighting babies since the 1970's. Colored with non-toxic pigments, her unique texture comes from using natural rubber. She squeaks when chewed on, and her neck is long and skinny enough to reach for those teething molars!

10. Gobblet Gobblers

Gobblet Gobblers is a Blue Orange classic. A unique twist on tic-tac-toe, the winner must get three-in-a-row. But be careful! The larger pieces can gobble up the little ones...

11. Sticky Mosaics

Sticky Mosaics are similar to traditional paint-by-number crafts, but they use stickers in lieu of paint. They are great for guided, independent play and encourage fine-motor development. 

12. Fantacolor Junior

Quercetti has been a leader in skill-building sets for over a decade. Fantacolor Junior is a first mosaic kit that utilizes chunky pegs to illustrate a picture. With a self-storage feature, and 8 interesting two-sided cards, kids as young as two can practice eye-hand coordination and fine motor skill development. 

13. Kickboard USA Scooters

Kickboard USA scooters are awesome. See what some aMuse moms have to say.  

14. Perpetual Commotion

Is an outrageously fast and incredibly addictive card game. Play your cards - as many and as fast as you can - into a common area. To win, you must play faster than your opponents. Perpetual Commotion is one part strategy, two parts speed and a healthy dose of luck-of-the-draw. 

15. Uglydolls

From the creative minds of two love-struck artists, David Horvath and Sun-Min, emerged the Uglydoll family. What started as a drawing of a playful, orange character named Wage, has turned into a whole new world of fun. These colorful and uniquely designed plush friends are oddly charming.

Don't forget to enter to win $150 to spend at aMuse!

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Let's Take the Mini-Kick!

Living in Fells Point, our family's daily routine has included walking around the neighborhood. This ritual accomplishes so many things for us collectively. 

As for me, it is a chance to have impromptu, (adult) conversations, grab a much needed coffee, pick up groceries while commending myself on my greenness, and well, to get the heck out of the house. My kids have always been willing participants as they too get to see friends, grab a chocolate milk, and burn off some energy. The last part being the tricky part for me, as I needed them tired for bedtime, but I was sort of addicted to using my stroller.

I just could not bring myself to leave it and venture out with the potential for my walk being cut short by some leg weary or bored child. Soon though, I began to feel uneasy about all of my walking and all of their sitting.  I wanted a way to fulfill my need for sustained forward motion and their need for daily exercise. 

I thought scooters would be the perfect solution. Believing they would simply outgrow them within a year, we just got the inexpensive, big store ones. The kids were excited when they saw them.  Riding down the sidewalk was not so fun.  The wheels would catch on the cracks in the pavement and stones would stop the wheels giving me much unwanted anxiety. The playground was a better place to ride, with it's smooth areas, but that was not my point! I wanted to travel! I ended up carrying them (the scooters) to and from the playground and the kid's interest waned, leaving us once again in the stroller.

I had put the scooter idea aside until one day I saw my friend almost sprinting down the sidewalk, full speed in pursuit of her two year old. Really red faced sprinting. As the kid turned the corner, with total ease, I knew there was something really great about that scooter he was riding. It turned out, as spring appeared, that the kids I saw actually riding, not carrying, or falling off their scooters, were the ones on the Mini-Kick.

Priding myself on my frugal (but hopefully fun) family management, the cost of this ultimate riding toy seemed prohibitive.  I couldn't stop thinking about it though, and finally, deciding I could just skip my next haircut, went ahead and bought one for my daughter for her birthday.

I will say now that every city kid should have one. The sidewalk cracks and gravel are no problem, and the constant and speedy forward motion is so nice for this mom.  Now when we leave for a walk, she just gets her scooter and we go.  We can literally be out for hours without her getting tired of riding.  It's really been great knowing that wherever we are going it will be fun, easy, and productive just to get there.

For another great testimonial about the Mini-Kick, check out Nina McCarthy's Post.

It's a Mini-Kick!

As my daughter was turning three, I found myself on the hunt for a great birthday gift for her that fit our city living criteria: She had to love it, as we could not acquire unloved clutter. She had to use it more than once for 20 minutes and it could not take up a large chunk of much needed space in our 10 ft wide Canton row-home.  

One morning, about a month before turning 3, while we were reading one of her favorite books Ella  said “I want a scooter like that!” while pointing to the picture in the book.   My mom had been saying for months that she had seen children Ella’s age zipping around the Upper West Side of Manhattan on these great little scooters with 2 wheels in the front and one in the back. My mom had stopped a ton of parents on the sidewalk and asked them their child’s age and the type of scooter they had. The answers were all the same, “He/she is 3 years old and it’s a Mini-Kick”.  

When I spoke to Claudia and heard she had it in stock in both stores it was a done deal. The wheels are just like in line skate wheels and actually do glide effortlessly. It takes no more than 1 or 2 pushes of her foot to really get a good glide going, which was thrilling for Ella. The positioning of the wheels allows her to kick back at a slight angle and remain balanced in the front. She quickly figured out on her own that by shifting the handlebars to the left or right, the front wheels would turn.

The best part is that it’s small enough to fit behind the couch, it’s super light to carry across to Patterson Park and she absolutely loves it.  The bad news? The tricycle that is taking up a large corner of our basement is going to have to find a new home. She hasn’t looked at it since the day the Mini-Kick came home with us.