Our selection of baby toys for little ones up to 12 months proves you’re never too little to play! Stimulating toys that promote learning and growth, babies enjoy things that rattle or make other noise, are decorated with bright colors, or otherwise make them smile. Start them off right!

As one year olds grow, they are always on the go and ready for more involved playtime. They are developing imaginations and learning how to pretend, as well as growing confidence. They can use foot to floor ride on toys, stacking and sorting toys, as well as early learning toys.

2 year olds are ready to play! Busy toddlers are learning to play on their own but still often need (and want) help from parents and older siblings. These kids like to play with their hands, put things together and watch things work, so bath toys, musical toys, and construction toys are just right!

There may not be a bigger stage advancement between age groups than that of 3 and 4 year olds. These preschoolers are full of energy and ready for new experiences. They love ride-on toys, puzzles, early craft projects and more.

Early school-aged children, 5 and 6 year olds, hit huge strides in growth and development. While they are reading and learning to solve problems, they still enjoy pretend play and using their imaginations.

Developing more of an independent streak, 7 and 8 year olds definitely have more “favorites” and know how they want to spend their spare time. They are ready for tougher strategy games and more complex kits as their minds continue to expand.

9 and 10 year olds are growing fast, spending more time away from home and learning more about what they like and don’t like. They can take advantage of individual games and activities when they want some time alone, while more social activities like games and sports toys are fun for open-ended play with others.

As kids reach 11 years and older playing with “toys” may be far from their radar. Yet it is important that these older kids still find time to relax, unwind, and simply have fun! Puzzles, sports toys, and open-ended art and science kits would be among the enjoyable toys for this diverse group.

As always, kids may not necessarily fit in with their numerical age group! Use your best judgement and the experience you have with the child you are shopping for to decide if perhaps a toy labeled as ages 6 and up may just be appropriate for that bright 4-year-old.

Also check out our Gift Guide for our favorites for gift-giving, with about 50 toys hand-picked by each age group.

Happy Shopping! Come back to our blog to read more ideas for shopping within our fun toy departments or finding toys from your favorite toy brands.

When I lived out West I took part in the annual TubaFest for several years. Literally hundreds of tuba players – from the smaller alto horns to the big Sousaphones – would spend one special day practicing, then putting on two festive performances. While we were encouraged to pick up the music ahead of time to practice, we put on the shows after just a few hours of practice together!

There is an official, nationwide event called TUBACHRISTMAS that takes place throughout the country. Some locations hold the event on Black Friday, while others maintain the original tradition of performing on Christmas Eve.

This photo here is one of the coolest pictures I have seen! This is from San Antonio in 2009. What a fun perspective for both the players and the audience!

You don’t have to look far to see dozens of awesome TUBACHRISTMAS performances, many taken from a unique perspective, like a Sousaphone in the back row! Watch an example here, “We Wish You a Merry (TUBA) Christmas” from TuBaltimore in 2009.

For more about the San Antonio Tuba Meister Christmas see this blog post. To find a TUBACHRISTMAS performance near you, or to join if you play, visit the TUBACHRISTMAS website.

Do you know what else they do? Partner with parents and teachers to put on super fun fundraisers in schools. With the new school year approaching these Gamewright GameNights are a great way to meet other families, play together and raise money for your children’s school!

Here’s how it works: One evening, the school hosts a GameNight at which families can play a range of new and favorite games provided by Gamewright. During the evening, people can purchase games and half of the proceeds from the sales are donated to your school! (The games will range in price from around 5 dollars to 15 dollars).

Gamewright makes it very simple to hold one of these events. Here are the steps to making it happen:

Step 1: First coordinate a date and location. Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings sometime between 6 and 9 are usually ideal. A central location like a school gym or cafeteria works well and two hours is the perfect amount of time.

Step 2: Once all the details are set with the school, contact Gamewright to give them the information plus your school’s shipping address. Gamewright then sends promotional posters and flyers to distribute throughout classrooms. They’ll also send demo games 2 weeks before the event so that your volunteer staff can learn the rules.

Step 3: You’ll need 1 volunteer to staff the sales table, 1 to staff a demo games table and then a handful of “Game Gurus”—people that can teach the games. Enlisting older kids and teens as some of the Game Gurus will make the night special for younger kids and the more Game Gurus you have the better!

Step 4: To promote the GameNight, distribute the provided fliers around the community and send mini flyers home with kids. Use your school’s PTO or PTA email lists to send out an announcement to weeks prior to the event and then another email reminder a few days before the event. Announce the event at community gatherings and at a PTO meeting!

Gamewright GameNights are a nice way to fundraise because kids don’t have to peddle candies, wrapping paper or knickknacks to their grandparents and neighbors. They can volunteer and help out at the event or just come and play! It’s low stress and lots of fun! Learn more about Gamewright GameNights here! Contact them at gamenight@gamewright.com or call 1-800-638-7568 x221 for more information.

We often see attendees from the conference in our store, searching for great developmental toys that they can use in their homes, classrooms, and offices. We strive to have a wonderful mix of toys that can address the ages, interests, and needs of all children, and certainly providing toys for special needs children is no exception!

While we have a wide array of toys from traditional manufacturers that are wonderful for children with special needs, we have also added a new company to the mix for us that has a focus in toys for special needs – Fun and Function! Launched in 2005, Fun and Function has a goal to provide affordable special needs toys that are not only innovative, but cool and fun for children too! With a wide variety of products, from tagless and weighted clothing to specialized ride-ons and exercise balls, Fun and Function is a fantastic resource for families and therapists looking for special needs products.

The first item that we have brought in from Fun and Function is the Saddle Scooter – and look at how much fun it is! This bright red, U-shaped scooter is low to the ground for younger children or children with gravitational insecurities, is made from high density foam, and features rubber, caster swivel wheels to scoot all around. This multi-functional Saddle Scooter is just one of the many great products available from Fun and Function – and it is perfect for play or therapy!

In addition to the Saddle Scooter from Fun and Function, we are happy to offer a wonderful collection of educational toys that are great for special needs children, from toys that work on motor skills to toys that help with early learning and more. But, if you are looking for more products from Fun and Function than we have at the moment, you can visit their website for their full collection of special needs products. We are very happy to add this innovative company to our toy selection, and we hope to expand our offerings from them in the future – because more than anything, they are about helping children reach their fullest potential through play.

And, that’s why we love the Saddle Scooter and Fun and Function, and we hope you do too!

Just like all Elenco Toys, the kit has everything you need for many hours of learning and fun. The directions are very clear of which parts you need for each of the six different solar models: Windmill, Revolving Plane, Airboat, Plane, Car and even a Puppy! Make on at a time; all are powered by the same solar module.

Let me frankly say that the module is a little tricky to put together! I’ll blame our adult-sized hands and guess that kids 10 and up would have an easier time inserting the white and green wires where they needed to go. You get the hang of it though.

As it says on the package, the parts all snap together and you don’t necessarily need any tools. They suggest using a diagonal cutter and we found one helpful for the initial removal of the plastic pieces out of the box.

You and your kids can decide what your favorite of the six is; ours was a tie between the Car and Revolving Plane. On a sunny day you really have to keep an eye on the car, because it moves quickly! Here too is a video of the Revolving Plane – you can see how fast it gets going in the sun!

No sun? No problem, really. While perhaps not quite as fun, you can put the solar panel near a halogen light bulb to get the motors moving. Note it only works for halogen lights, not fluorescent!

One more note, this kit proves that good things DO come in small packages! It’s all packed into a box that’s just 8″ x 7″ x 2″. But at just $24.99, the 6-in-1 Educational Solar Kit is a perfect multi-purpose kit for older kids. All will be amazed that the light we’re surrounded by every day can power these toys!

No surprise – we love playing with toys around here. See more staff toy reviews!

Here is the friendly reminder that Father’s Day is less than 2 weeks away (June 20). Do you and your kids need some new ideas for recognizing Dad on this special day?

Our number one choice is a one-of-a-kind craft project. Here at Growing Tree Toys, one of our most popular Father’s Day items year after year is the Enchanted Garden Stones Kit. This neat project includes “magic stone mix” and all of the embellishments to make it your own.

(Are you near our State College store? Join us for our Kidtivity™ of this project on Saturday, June 19, just in time for Father’s Day the next day! Call 814-237-3655 or stop by to reserve a spot for your kid or kids.)

Here are some more favorite giftable, DIY projects:

• Design Your Own Soccer Ball Kit
• Build a Birdhouse Kit
• Illustory Kit

Another fun way to thank Dad is with a festive Father’s Day meal. Our recent featured blog, Our Family Treat, is a great place to stop for kid-friendly recipes, like Black Bean Burgers and Chocolate Chip Vanilla Pudding Cookies.

One more awesome source for ideas to get kids in the kitchen is the Disney Family Fun Recipes section. They have a festive collection of Father’s Day recipes, from the Tee Time Cake to the super-cute Pop’s Personalized Pretzels, pictured!

You can also skip the kitchen prep by planning a fun picnic! Get together cold cuts, condiments and rolls, or simply get some subs to go and spend the afternoon at a favorite park or other outdoor spot. Don’t forget your camera!

But hey, what about the Dad who’s really just a big kid? We have several toys that not only he, but the whole family will find fun!

• Automoblox Red C9 Sportscar Racer
• Ultra Stomp Rocket Toy
• Marshmallow Shooter
• Top Toss Game
• Doinkit Magnetic Darts

We extend the happiest Father’s Day wishes to all the great Dads out there!

With nationwide initiatives from the White House to the NFL that are pushing kids to get outside playing and exercising, it is no wonder that we search for a wonderful array of outdoor toys for kids of all ages. But as a buyer, I find outdoor active toys to be one of the hardest categories for which to buy. Sadly, there just aren’t as many outdoor toy companies as there are companies in some of our other categories, which makes the selection small, and the amount of toys that we love even smaller.

But, “flying” in to fill that hole with a wonderful selection of outdoor toys that are super-fun is Zing Toys! While we have seen them for a few years now, we have finally added Zing Toys to our product mix. Was it the wonderfully fun booth at Toy Fair that sealed the deal? Perhaps, but we are happy to finally have them in stock just in time for warmer temperatures.

First and foremost, their toys are just FUN! While this may seem like a simple prerequisite for outdoor toys, we search high and low for toys that fit the bill – and Zing Toys goes above and beyond in the fun department. Not only do they offer simple, inexpensive toys – like the Zeebeez Toy that can jump with simple action – but they also offer an array of flying toys, throwing toys, and other products that are sure to get kids running, jumping, and playing the day away.

But, in addition to these items, they offer the super-cool Zyclone Zing Ring Blaster, which is far and away our favorite toy from them. This unique toy features a launcher that sends a ring flying up to 100 feet – not only is it fun, but kids can turn it into a variety of challenging games that are sure to have them running and playing in no time. But in case me telling you how awesome this toy is does not win you over, check out the video that Zing put together showing the Zyclone in action, and I know you will rush to buy it:

Those kids are clearly more skilled than I was when I attempted playing with the Zyclone, but I thought it was fun regardless of my inability to send the ring where I wanted it to go. And, all of our compadres in ASTRA (the association that represents specialty toy stores) seemed to agree with us, as the Zyclone was voted one of the top toys that stores saw at Toy Fair this year.

So, when you are looking for fun items that will keep kids outside, active, and having fun, Zing Toys, might be just the brand of toys for which you are searching. These simple, yet super fun, toys will be entertaining for kids and have them racing to play outside. And, that’s why we love Zing Toys, and we hope you do too!

Let me introduce you to a company called C & A Scientific Co., a manufacturer of medical/scientific supplies. This company makes advanced microscopes and serious science supplies, but they also – luckily for us – make science fun for kids with a small but wonderful line of microscopes and supplies, our favorite of which is the My First Lab Duo-Scope! This Duo-Scope is not only a great price for a piece of “real” science equipment, but it provides kids with an exciting investigative experience that will help foster a love for the sciences.

But, what exactly does this microscope do that is so special? Well, it offers children 2 ways to explore the world around them – a basic biological scope to view slides and a traditional dissecting scope to view specimens – with dual lighting to illuminate slides from below or shine on objects from above. This Duo-Scope also features wonderful magnification with a 10x eyepiece with 4x, 10x and 40x objectives, as well as 40x, 100x and 400x magnification with the real optical glass lenses. Just imagine how kids’ specimen must look to them using this microscope!

To help kids with their studies and collection of specimen, the My First Lab Duo-Scope Microscope comes with 5 blank slides, 4 prepared slides, 2 bottles of stain, forceps, scalpel, a plastic test tube, a plastic Petri dish and more. Kids will turn into little laboratory technicians in no time, using their advanced supplies to learn and explore. And nothing will be safe from their curious minds – bugs under rocks, pet hair, leaves, and more will find their way under the lights for further inspection by budding scientists.

So, while we are in the business of selling toys, we know that just because kids are younger, doesn’t mean that every item they want has to be a toy version of the real thing – it sometimes should be an age-appropriate version of the real thing! This notion is especially true with children’s science items – kids deserve a microscope that works just like a real one does, and parents should not have to pay real microscope prices to get a quality kids version.

And the My First Lab Duo-Scope Microscope fits the bill – it is a quality microscope made by a scientific company that includes all the wonderful features that kids will love, at a reasonable price point, which makes science come to life before kids’ eyes! And while you will find this Duo-Scope at our toy store, it is more than your average toy, providing great “real life” play value for young scientific minds.

And, that’s why we love the My First Lab Duo-Scope Microscope, and we hope you do too!

Believe it or not, Uglydolls have been around since 2002, but have seen a recent rise in popularity, mostly spurned by winning the Specialty Toy of the Year award from the Toy Industry Association in 2006 and by a certain Miss Sasha carrying one to her first day of school in Washington DC last year. I have to admit, these dolls won me over when I saw my first life-size Uglydoll walking around Toy Fair years ago, and I still love to see them staring at me with their goofy faces in our retail store or warehouse!

Created as drawings on correspondence between two artists, David Horvath and Sun-Min Kim, Uglydolls quickly grew into a whole line of adorably ugly creatures that are not only cuddly, but fast friends to children and adults alike. With bright colors, unique faces and equally unique names and personalities, Uglydolls have become a popular mainstay in specialty stores nationwide. But, why are they so popular? I have a few hunches why …

Uglydolls are the perfect gift for any age – young ones love that they are a fun doll with which to cuddle, older children appreciate their hip design and “room décor presence,” and adults are taken by their artistic appeal, quirky descriptions and “non-stuffed toy” look. It’s not very often that you find adults purchasing dolls for themselves – I know I normally wouldn’t consider it!

And, it’s the non-stuffed doll design of the Uglydolls that make them perfect for kids that normally shy away from the traditional stuffed toys and plush. But don’t think that those children that like classic stuffed toys will want to stay far away from Uglydolls – they love them just as much! And whether kids like them for their individual designs or their unique story lines and descriptions, we know they won’t be able to stop with just one Uglydoll – they will need to create a whole Uglydoll family!

With a variety of sizes, colors, shapes and goofy and ugly designs, there is an Uglydoll to please just about anyone. And with new characters introduced every year, the ugliness of the Uglydoll line just keeps on spreading. So come on – everyone needs a little ugly in their life, don’t you think?

And, that’s why we love Uglydoll, and we hope you do too!

Building blocks are the quintessential childhood toy, and for good reason. Not only do blocks serve as a way to introduce early building that helps kids develop both gross and fine motor skills, but they also encourage imaginative play that challenges kids to build and dream. In addition to the creativity that building blocks promote, these classic wooden toys, specifically the ABC’s and 123’s styles, feature educational qualities. These building blocks help introduce children to letters and numbers, as well as grouping and sequencing. And, don’t forget the spatial and reasoning skills that building with blocks helps develop!

And while all wooden building blocks help build these skills, which make them a staple in homes and preschools everywhere, the Alphabet blocks from Uncle Goose Toys seemed special to us as we searched for a great set of blocks. Why? First, Lindenwood, Inc. is based in the United States – Grand Rapids, Michigan to be exact. They are still building blocks based upon the direction established by the founder of Uncle Goose, William Bultman, back in 1983. Since his death in 1992, Lindenwood has made it their mission to “carry on the tradition of the Uncle Goose brand of Toys, to make only products that have enduring value, especially products that are unavailable elsewhere.”

Second, Lindenwood makes all of their blocks using basswood that is farmed, planted, and harvested around the Great Lakes area. And, due to their commitment to the environment, their manufacturing process minimizes waste in both production and packaging. In addition to using this renewable wood, they also utilize child-safe, non-toxic inks in the creation of their blocks, making this “Made in the USA” line of products a brand you can trust for quality and safety.

And while this commitment to quality and to the production of eco-friendly toys helped win us over, it’s the blocks that really sealed the deal, so to speak. Based on the turn-of-the-century design of the first patented ABC block, the Classic Alphabet Blocks from Uncle Goose Toys were born. A 28-block set, the Classic Alphabet Blocks feature beautiful classic styling and colors, as well as 4 complete alphabets and 3 sets of numerals. But what else make these blocks stand out amongst others?

In addition to the standard ABC blocks design, these blocks feature 2 embossed letters on each block, making for a unique, attractive appearance. These blocks also feature beveled edges on the top of the block to make the blocks more comfortable to hold by removing those sharp corners. But, in addition to the unique construction, these blocks also feature 27 cute animal pictures with the animal’s name written below, as well as the written name of each numeral – all of which build vocabulary and spelling skills.

And while the Classic Alphabet Blocks Set is the cornerstone of the line, we are sure that you will also like the other unique offerings of Uncle Goose Toys, including the starter set with a more modern design, the Uppercase and Lowercase Alphabet Blocks Set. Or, if you are looking for the perfect Alphabet blocks gift set for young ones, the ABC Flyer Wooden Blocks Wagon is the classic toy with such a lovely design that it is sure to please both children and parents!

So, while we are strong advocates of children playing with wooden blocks, whatever the brand, we want to make sure that we offer some of the best quality building blocks for children available. Which is why we offer Uncle Goose Toys – their Alphabet blocks are not only beautifully hand-crafted in the United States, but their commitment to quality and to offering an eco-friendly product is a mission we can stand behind and support. For us, the decision was as easy as ABC and 123! And, that’s why we love Uncle Goose, and we hope you do too!