Gifts For Kids

Wow, cool! Was my son’s response when I showed him this set. I guess we know what to get him for his birthday… A safe choice, when you read the reviews by other customers who bought this from Amazon.

For kids, what you have here it 2 cans of Meteor Mud, three bottles of Lunar Lava and alien half-molds which you can mix and match to create multiple unique alien figures combos. They come with their own spaceship too - for hours of fun imaginative playtime with your crew of extraterrestrial critters.

For parents, you get a high-quality set, that will intrigue your kid into hours of creative work. No baking or any other treatment is required - the clay is high quality and will set in the mold within several minutes (or, if needed, mixed with a little water, will become flexible again).  The funky design and the very theme are likely to keep kids aged six to 10 happy, and the price… well, at under $20, I think it’s excellent value for money.

Click here to read the reviews, check out the product description and order from Amazon.

When shopping for gifts for kids, there is always the easy choice of a DVD movie or a computer game. All you have to do is pick the kid’s favorite super hero, or just get the latest bestseller. Very hard to miss with these, really. Then again, whenever I reach out for one of those on the shelf, I keep getting the image of your average couch potato, wondering whether I’m doing that kid any good by enticing her or him to spend even more time in front of the screen.

Then again, kids today adore gadgets and electronics, so what can you do? Well, variety is key, of course, but one of my favorite solution is a gadget that also makes the kids move around. And this is exactly what the Hullaballoo is:

Essentially, it’s an easy to grasp and use musical console that, along with rythmical music, gets players to jump around and perform moves, some of them fairly complicated and involving more than just the legs… as the pads monitor performance.  It tells you what steps to make and creates a challenge with a multitude of different combinations. It has both beginner and advanced mode, so kids of various ages can play this (as can their grownups).

You can actually see this system in action on Amazon - click here for the product page, where you can see a demo movie of the Hullabaloo and order with the great price available on Amazon.

Ok, I confess,  “spy” equipment sold as gifts for kids, used to make me go… “Hmmm… now, why would any kid need this?” Why would a kid want to spy on anything, especially in the dark? Sounded too suspicious for me.

Well, I have a good answer now, as we’re getting this very system for our kids. The answer is hedgehogs. Or, if you prefer, wildlife watching during night time. You see, we recently found out there are hedgehogs living right under our home. I was the lucky one to figure out what those odd noises were, seeing two adult hedgehogs communicating with each other, rather loudly, right next to our home. We think they have a family there with babies, and we really really want to take a look. Since crawling under there is out of the question, with the amount of snakes in our area, we decided to go hi-tech with this:

With real night vision and a quiet car, we hope to be able to get a glimpse of the mysterious nocturnal habitat under our house. The whole stealth mode operation of this toy (?) absolutely thrilled all three boys living in this house (that would be my two kids and grownup husband), and me, I’m just curious to see if we can get a glimpse of baby hedgehogs.

And since this is the gifts for kids blog, I will also mention that this system has one won its spot as one of the top 5 new toys for 2006 - and you can be sure that it makes a super gift for kids (as long as they can get Daddy away from their new toy).

There are plenty of specs you may want to check out first, so here’s the Amazon link where you can read all about this fablous gadget and order it at a great price too: click here for the Wild Planet Spy Video Car on Amazon.

KidKraft Wood Stable and Horse Play Set is finely crafted and inspires hours of imaginative play. The 2-level wood stable with a loft and a ladder, 2 stalls, and sliding doors looks like a real stable! It even has a folding wood fence so your child can choose the location and shape of the corral, or fold it up and stash it in the loft for space saving storage.

The KidKraft Wooden Stable Play Set includes both a brown and a white molded horse, each 6 1/2″h. The entire set combined weighs 7 1/2 lbs, and it’s dimentions are: 18 x 11 1/4 x 15 3/4″h. The set is appropriate for ages 3 and up.

Wooden toys are preferred by Waldorf preschools and the Waldorf educational system. Your child will love the real country feeling of the natural wood play set, and of course, they can personalize it with non-toxic paint if they want a fun art project.

BIG savings are yours due to excess inventory, so don’t hesitate.

Click for more details and price

Here’s a gift for kids that will make parents happy. In fact, it’s probably best given to children by their parents.

As a Mom, I know just how difficult it can be to battle with your child when you’re in a hurry. Take this morning in our household, for example. Dad in a hurry, to get to a meeting in the office, and we all need to be out the door on time, so we can drive him to the train station and the kids to school. Our five year old boy has other plans… taking the morning as slowly as he possibly can. We have to keep showing him the clock, but hey, it’s just a bunch of numbers and dials up there - not very meaningful when you are five years of age, is it?

Just for those situations, a friend recommended the “On-Task On-Time” system. A mother of three (aged 3, 6 and 11), she says this colorful wall-mounted  gadget has changed their life. Based on a timer, this is a time management system that uses colorful drawings to organize the different day routines.

Each family can create their own disc, using the stickers in the set. Three routine discs are available (morning, afternoon and evening), so you can fit in a variety of activities for each time of the day. The child can then see for herself what needs to be done, as well as what new tasks are on the agenda.

It does work, transforming daily routine from battle with a “nagging parents” experience, into a journey towards independence and self-reliance for a child.

So, not sure if this qualifies as a gift for kids per se, so maybe a gift for families? It’s available here at Amazon, so have a look and see if this gadget may be the right thing for yours.