Mama Bzz: products for 2's

Showing posts with label products for 2's. Show all posts

Saturday, August 29, 2009

* Kumon First Steps Series *

* This review done by Melissa J *

Kumon First Step Series

As a homeschooling Mama and a child-care provider, I am always on the look out for activities for toddlers.

Fun that holds their attention is necessary. Teaching skills is an added bonus. Kumon Publishing provides me with both, with their First Steps Series, geared towards children 2 to 5 years of age.

There are several books in the series, each helping young children to develop fine motor control skills through activities such as coloring, folding, pasting, and cutting. Each workbook retails at $5.95, which to me, even on a tight budget, it a great price for the number of worksheets I get with each book!

The entire series is as follows:

Let's Color!

and More Let's Color!

Let's Fold!

and More Let's Fold!

Let's Sticker & Paste!

and More Lets Sticker and Paste!

Let's Cut Paper!

and More Lets Cut Paper!

This is a series that thrills me as a Mama and delights my daughter and day care kids even more! Thank you Kumon for delivering such great products.

To see more of the broad selection of resources that Kumon offers, visit their website.

* Crayola Beginnings Tadoodles *

* This review was done by Melissa J *

What a fun way to introduce your little one to the world of art! Crayola Beginnings First Marks BUV was worth every penny I've paid and to my amazement, hasn't run out yet - - though it has been used regularly in our household.

Put out by Crayola, these little paint animals are big enough for little hands to grip and manipulate. With a simple press on the paint pad, the paint flows and eager hands can smear the colors as much as they please. Chances are, they'll get it on them as well as the paper, but it washes off easily enough.

Color names are all a part of the fun, with fun tags like "Yes, Yes Yellow", "Bouncy Blue", "Oopsie Orange", "Buddy Black", "Patty Cake Purple", and "Please Pink".

Fun names aren't all there is either. Yellow is a baby chick, blue is an elephant, orange is a cat, purple is a hippo, pink is a pig, and black is a penguin that will bring a smile, even to an adult's face.

Each of these Tadoodles come in a little cart with wheels, so when your child has tired of painting they can continue to develop their motor skills by pushing the cart around. And trust me, they will! For hours!

The only issue I had with these, is that the paint is thin, if my toddler pressed down too hard, alot came out. With a small piece of thin paper, this made for a bit of a mess. I found that large sheets of poster board or finger painting paper was better to use, than a traditional letter size piece of paper. Still, as stated before, the paint was easily washed off and the issue was one I could deal with.

For similar resources for little hands, check out Crayola's Crayola Beginnings TaDoodles Easy Stampers BUV

and Crayola 3ct. Washable All-In--One Paint Orange, Purple, Green

Friday, August 28, 2009

Ebeanstalk: Sort 'n' Learn Pelican

Mel participated in this review for Ebeanstalk.

Recently, I was introduced to Ebeanstalk, which is a company dedicated to selecting good, safe toys and baby gifts. Ebeanstalk is looking for moms to help pick the toys they and their children love and will play with for years to come. They sent us a toy to test and try out. It's called the Sort 'n' Learn Pelican from Tiny Love. Tiny Love makes great developmental toys for babies, by the way.

At first, I was thinking that my boys had enough toys; why do they need another? Actually, though, Jaden loves this toy, which automatically makes me love this toy....,and it tends to grab his attention better than some of the other toys he has. He's really enjoyed playing with it. It's all about shapes and colors. The pelican's mouth opens up to swallow the shapes. The four shapes it works with are the circle, square, triangle, and star. Each shape also has a number on it, numbered 1-4. As Jaden inserts the shape into the designated shape hole, I can either set the pelican to play a sound/music, say the shape name, or say the color. Oh, and I can set this toy to speak in either English, French, or Spanish, which is really kind of cool.

It's a really cute pelican with its huge mouth and its crinkly sounding, little feathers and wings. It's also very sturdy with my rough and tumble boys. The minute we got it, Jaden was interested in it and wanted to touch it and play with it. If I were buying it, I probably would have bought it when he was just a bit younger, since he's likely to grow out of it within the next year and a half or so. For now, though, he and I will both enjoy it, especially when school rolls around next week, and Mommy needs something to occupy my "little monster" for just a bit.:)