Griffin Technology is a company you might not know by name, but you would probably recognize many of the accessories they develop to keep our mobile devices charged and secure while at home or on-the-go.

So — here is one of their newest concepts. What if you could transform your iPad so that your children could actually use a marker or crayons to safely draw on top of it? Well meet the Griffin LightBoard Case.

The LightBoard Case is a blue and green plastic outer frame with a clear plastic screen covering on the inside.  You place your iPad inside the LightBoard and after you secure it safely inside, you turn it over and attach a piece of paper under the clipboard clip. Once you download the free LightBoard Trace App, you are ready to launch any one of the games or tracing applications.  Included in the package were 50 sheets of thin paper and one free, black, washable marker. After you draw the item in black marker, children can take the paper off the iPad and color it in with all sorts of their favorite markers, crayons, etc. Only soft leaded pencils, crayons and washable felt tip markers are recommended to use with the cover.Don’t worry, you can still access the volume on the iPad through the case, as well as hook up your charger, all with the outer case attached.

The LightBoard Trace app itself involves a few different activities.With “Fishy Friends” and “Backyard Bugs,” using a color background andanimation, the app will teach you how to draw 5 different sea creatures and 5 insects in step-by-step fashion. With “Robot Mixer” and “Magical Mashup,” use different combinations of tops and bottoms to create unique monsters and robots to trace.  In “Dot 2 Dot,” the child will trace from one blinking light to another to create one of 5 different pictures.  In “Who at the Zoo,” kid’s trace small portions of a zoo animal, though you don’t trace the line’s in order, so it could be fun for kid’s to try to use their planning skills to guess what they might be drawing. The “Family Fun” activity will teach you how to draw people in the family that could include Mom, Dad, Sister, Brother, Baby Boy and Baby Girl. “Write it” allows kid’s to first type different words on the iPad on-screen keyboard, than it translates the letters into block letters which can also be traced and eventually colored in.

In all of the activities there is the ability to either speed up or slow down the directions, which is great for younger preschool aged children or children who, in general, require a bit more time to process directions.

I have never have an ounce of drawing ability to create anything that looks representational of what I had in mind and as luck would have it, I work with kids on drawing and tracing all the time.  I see their frustration as well where they quickly draw a boring stick and as educators we tend to ask kids for more detail. With the LightBoard App kids can practice the pictures step-by-step, so, over time they should be able to learn to draw some basic animals and people that are more representative of real looking people and objects.

In terms of future development of this app, I do wish there were a way to scale the image and resize it. That way you could create a whole scene on one piece of paper with the different characters. Otherwise, it is nice the animals are simple to draw and large, but I found myself using multiple pieces of paper. Since the pictures can’t be resized now, I would suggest tracing, coloring and cutting out the picture then gluing them onto a larger piece of construction paper where they can be pieced together as a scene.

Parents, for those of you who have children learning to hold the marker with their fingertips, you can prop up the case on a slightly inclined surface like a two inch three ring binder to help you child’s hand, wrist and forearm placement to gain more control of the marker when drawing and tracing.

I received the Griffin LightBoard case free to facilitate a review. The opinions in this post are my own. For more information on Griffin Technology and their review process, check out http://bit.ly/griffinreview

Mega Bloks provided this train set free to facilitate a review. The opinions expressed in this blog post are purely the bloggers own.

This is a very sturdy push toy for young children! Many push toys very easily tip backwards when walking behind them due to instability, especially when children are learning to develop their balance on their feet. No matter how hard I tried to tip it back, all four wheels remained on the ground.

I am a huge fan of multi-use products and this toy will grow with your child for many years. I’m sure VTech has their reasons behind identifying 18 months as a starting point for this toy, but I do believe that with appropriate supervision, it could be used for younger children. Gavin has been walking since 10 months old by himself, as well as maneuvering push-toys.He was very easily able to push and maneuver this toy when walking. He is already able to sit on this in “ride-on mode” and use two feet to push it backwards, as developmentally maneuvering backwards is easier than using two feet to propel it forward.

When in scooter mode the music will play faster the faster you ride. As is always recommended, make sure your child is using a helmet and wearing shoes under your supervision when using this toy.  I personally think it is easy to maneuver between a push toy, ride-on and scooter. It does often require the use of two hands to make the adjustments, so children will will most likely require adult assistance to switch between play modes.

I felt like the batteries were drained rather quickly, but considering that this is a fabulously manufactured toy with so many gross motor components, I wasn’t too concerned. Every toy has a cost benefit analysis and I would purchase this toy solely based on the large motor fun it provides. The lights and sounds are an added bonus, but can be a little overstimulating at times, especially as kids often just start arbitrarily pushing buttons rather than taking in the educational pieces they are geared directly for. There is an attached basket with three items, a compass, a flashlight, and a walkie talkie that can be placed on top of the Zebra’s head. In terms of the language stimulation, there are many different settings that play songs, recite colors, and identify animals. There is a volume control and an automatic shut off!

VTech provided this toy free to facilitate a review.  The opinions expressed in this blog post are purely the bloggers own.

Constructive Playthings also included a magnetic wooden train set with the table. Though they arrived on different days and were not shipped together, this magnetic wooden train set contains over 100 pieces. The pieces are made from birch and beech hardwoods and are very soft to the touch without any rough spots. The set also includes straight tracks, curved tracks, bridges, crossovers, freight cars, animals, crossing gates, signs, people and trees. The set is completely customizable and it is suggested for children ages 3 and up.

Here are some suggestions for using this train set with your children to can enhance their development.

- Encourage your child to develop other muscles of their body by not only playing in standing, but playing on both knees or with one knee in front in a half kneel position

- Some children get frustrated with putting together the tracks in a specific design- first place a sheet of paper over the table and once you come up with a simple configuration, trace it, then store any unnecessary pieces in another location so they can rebuild it from their road map in a puzzle fashion, without getting distracted by all the extra pieces

- The set comes with signage that includes a stop sign, pedestrian crossing and traffic light – practice teaching your child the concepts of stopping and looking both ways to make sure there are no pedestrians in the way of the train

- Using the traffic light, call out a different light when their train reaches the light to help their learn whether they should stop, go, or move slowly in an interactive way to role play so they can generalize these skills to real life situations when navigating the community with you

-  In my design I created “road hazards” with trees over the track  to assist children with problem solving or role playing these situations as part of their pretend play scenario’s

Constructive Playthings is giving away a Train Table and Train Set to one lucky reader!  Please consider visiting the Constructive Playthings website to locate great gifts for the holidays while completing your holiday shopping!

Mandatory Entry:

1. Visit www.cptoy.com by clicking on the Constructive Playthings Button to the right and take a look around.  Come back here and tell us what other item a child in your life would love to receive for the Holidays. Remember that by clicking this button you receive a 15% discount off your entire order.

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Contest ends Friday November 5th, 11:59 p.m. EST

Photo credits to Derek Wilmot at www.derekwilmot.com

I received this train set and train table free from Constructive Playthings for the purpose of a review, though the opinions expressed in this review are purely the bloggers own.

Tisha from International Playthings demonstrates toys from the Ecotronic Brand. Kids love toys with electronic features, but batteries contribute a ton of toxic waste into the environment so Ecotronic brand includes the lights and sounds without batteries! It uses the power of kids play to power the toys. The monkey flashlight is activated by squeezing the handle and this powers the rechargeable battery inside. The monkey’s nose will then light up and it’s an LED flashlight. Perfect to put in a handbag, works on hand strengthening and is great for Halloween, camping and to place in a child’s bedroom.

The Rocketship is activated by cranking the handle. To power it up you hit the button and it’s a NASA recording of a space shuttle lifting off. It has long lasting LED lights.

The EcoRadio is easy to charge up. It’s an FM radio but it also comes with adaptors for cell phone charging! It’s entertaining at sports games, the beach or picnics! It’s good for safety and great for on the road when you need to charge your phone!

Small World Toys three piece farm animal puzzle review by Toyqueen. Showing the extra benefits that include grasping techniques and more.
For children 12-18 months, these three piece puzzles from Small World Toys are great way to promote puzzles. Small World Toys makes nice beginner puzzles with only 3 pictures and there is a visual reference underneath. Children will learn the skill by matching the piece to the actual location. For younger smaller hands, they have larger handles to hold onto as it does not take as much skill to rotate the piece into the puzzle. You may need to use hand over hand assistance, where you place your hand over your child’s and teach them to guide the piece into the puzzle. This allows you the opportunity to teach the skill of how to complete a puzzle. It may be helpful if you cover over the pieces they are not working on, so they are not visually distracted and can focus on the piece you provide them. Incorporate language into puzzles by singing songs like Old McDonald Had a Farm, give them the piece, sing the song together, and assist the child with putting in the piece before you sing the next line and move onto the next pieces. This makes the puzzle interactive. Keep extra containers from around the house handy for storage of the pieces. www.toyqueen.com