Inventor of Ant-O Sphere speaks with ToyQueen at Toy Fair 2010 in New York City

Ben from Spinmaster gives an overview of some of their great toys including ChixOs, Aquadoodle, Moon Sand and Glodoodle.

Ben describes that ChixOs is actually a part of a larger line PixOs. You can build all these different things with beads. Then you spray it with water and they stick together. ChixOs comes with a playhouse, girls, and the beads. It allows the child to design the characters any way they like. The kids can decorate items inside their house such as a chair, sofa and table using the actual Pixos. ChixOs gives kids a chance to be really creative.

Aquadoodle, is the ultimate no mess toy, and great for a first drawing toy for young children. There is a large mat. You fill a pen with water and multiple kids can draw at the same time and play together. After the water dries the mat is totally re-usable.

Moon Sand is the sand that never dries out! Kids can build all these different toys and take them apart.

Glodoodle was developed by an engineering graduate from Harvard where you can draw with light! You can use the stylus or your finger and can see through it to draw another person’s face which fosters creativity at a young age with no goal in mind.

Ben says, “as a kid you should never have a goal, you should just do.” Many of Spinmaster’s toys provide endless play opportunities.

Leapfrog Tag Junior is a great way to foster the love of learning and reading for 2-3 year olds. The Tag Jr. set comes with the book pal and a board book. 5 different books can be downloaded to the same book pal through the use of a USB cord that comes in the package. The software is Macintosh or Windows compatible. The book pal is easy for young 2-3 year olds to hold due to it’s size. Wand the book pal over the pages to promote interactive learning. If you wand it over the words, it will read the words. You can also place it over different pictures like, for example, the sun. It assists with learning vocabulary, preposition development, rhyming words, and colors. It is also interactive in that it may ask the child to find different pictures. Find the the Tag Jr. at www.leapfrog.com

The Scribble & Write by Leap Frog is a great educational tool to assist young preschool and elementary school age children in writing upper and lowercase letters of the alphabet. What’s great about this toy is that there is a drawing tool to help children over the age of 3 who are not developmentally ready to write letters, with imitating all the prewriting shapes that are a prerequisite for handwriting such as a vertical line, horizontal line, circle, diagonals, squares and triangles. Children learn to write the letters of the alphabet in Kindergarten. Make sure to discuss with your child’s teacher whether the school’s handwriting curriculum begins with upper or lowercase letters. Developmentally it is easier to complete the uppercase letters first before lowercase letters. Make sure to start with easier letters like L, P, B that incorporate the straight line letters and leave Z, X, Y for the last ones as they include diagonals and are more challenging to imitate. A nice stylus attaches in the back that is thick and easy for small hands to hold. Make sure to encourage your child to watch the formation and listen to the directions before completing it to learn good formation habits. Encourage top to bottom letter formation. Consider holding the toy up in the air, so that it is in a vertical plane as this is also helpful to enhance grasp development.

Lauri Pegboard – Click to watch in HD
Using the Lauri Pegboard works on grasp and release patterns with children over the age of 18 months. These colorful pegs are placed into the foam board. The pegs stack on top of one another to work on building a tall tower, which can promote upper extremity strength, control, and coordination. This pegboard also promotes index finger isolation, which is a skill required to point and ultimately assist children with pointing to different items in the room. Many children enjoy using their index finger to poke the pegs from back to front. Older children can work on patterning, where you create a pattern and they complete it. These pegs are also great for simple math. Some children enjoy it when you fill up the entire pegboard and pretend it’s a birthday cake. Make sure to sing Happy Birthday and blow the candles out! www.toyqueen.com