Five Perfect Toys for Toddlers

Finding toys for toddlers can be super challenging! They’ve outgrown their baby toys–but not quite ready yet for more complex toys geared to preschoolers.  The toys need to match their new found mobility and desire to do things again and again!

Here are just five of my favorites:

Little People Load ‘n Go Wagon (Fisher-Price)

Step 2 Basic Rhythms Piano (Step 2)

Playskool Clipo Creativity Table (Playskool)

Schylling Color Roller (Schylling)

Rollipop Toddler Starter and Advanced Sets (Edushape)

The full reviews are on our site, www.toyportfolio.com.

Today Show Tomorrow…

Tomorrow I’ll be talking about some of our award winning picks for babies and toddlers. Looking forward to sharing some of the really great products for these age groups.  We’ll be there with eight babies/toddlers! Should be lively!! The award winners are all featured on our Platinum List for this holiday season on our website, www.toyportfolio.com

i-Turtle…

…did not win the race with our testers.  i-Turtle is the latest from Hasbro’s interactive line of iPod speaker/toys. Our 8 year old tester was really excited to test i-Turtle and at first really liked the Apple-inspired all white design. One of our 8 year old also felt the toy was not “babyish”….ok, let’s all take a collective sigh.  While the varying moods of i-Turtle interested our tester, she was disappointed with all of the blinking lights and “neediness” of the toy.  They also reported that the noise the turtle makes when it’s shifting gears interfered with their ability to listen to the music.  It has now been relegated to take its position as the “iStatue”–a silent statue at that! Another tester, really wanted i-Turtle to just play the music without moving so much.  He suggested that there should be a no-motion/lights button.

I loved that it tapped it’s foot to the music and the light show to be reminiscent of Close Encounters…but ultimately the sound of the mechanism moving does take away from your listening pleasure  and we thought the quality of the toy as a speaker was not very good.

A sign of the times: less toot!

We just got the new Lamaze Play and Grow Elephantunes–similar to the original  Octotunes when you squeeze the “feet”–it produces a musical sound.   But now there are only four feet to toot.  Stay tuned. We’ll have to see what our testers think.  Both are cute–just less toot.

Pick of the Day: Mega Bloks Smart Builders Piano

We’re often asked for recommendations in the music category. Most of them have such a terrible sound quality that we think the category should be relabeled “anti-music” toys…the kind where you can’t wait for your child to stop playing.

So we were really pleasantly surprised by the new Smart Builders Piano from Mega Bloks. At $34.99 it’s a middle range toy that our toddlers loved exploring. It is such an interactive toy that we have given it both our Platinum Award and our SNAP (Special Needs Adaptable Product) Award. There is a keyboard and then the added fun of Bloks that change the music. For a complete review, visit our website.